SCOUNDREL
by Somaybelikeno
Summary: After Rey leaves him behind on Starkiller Base for that traitor FN-2187 Kylo Ren decides he's finished with the First Order. But things don't go as planned when his grandfather's Force ghost shows up. What Anakin wants for him isn't exactly what Kylo had envisioned. For one thing he never wished to become a radar technician. And who the hell is this Matt anyway?
1. Chapter 1

**Warning for this chapter: suicidal thoughts.**

 _ **"Kid's gonna get in trouble one day. Every kid does, but with the blood of a scoundrel and a princess in his veins, his defiance will shake the stars." - Lando Calrissian**_

 **"ThisKidsNotAlright"**  
 **AWOLNATION**  
(I still don't know what I'm doing)  
Fuck

* * *

He's a tool. A broken one at that.

That's what it comes down to, he thinks, as the snow falls quietly around him, the flecks of white covering him up little by little.

It's been a bad day. What a fucking understatement that is. He does not seem to be able to follow his master's wishes even when he succeeds. The Supreme Leader said this would be his greatest test yet, and he hadn't failed. He had risen to it, surpassed the obstacle that stood in his way, proved that he'd not be seduced and it should have made him strong.

And yet it's still there. That fucking call. That terrible, all-encompassing call to the light which he can't seem to escape. The Supreme Leader will crush him. Of course. He isn't surprised at the thought. Just like he hadn't been surprised or denied it when Han Solo said that very same thing. His body is a weapon to be wielded, the tool his Master uses to do his glorious bidding until he's used up, dull and broken. And he has served his Master to the best of his abilities, he really has, but he just can't seem to get it right. His actions haven't bolstered his beliefs; Supreme Leader Snoke had promised they would, and the Supreme Leader does not make mistakes. And so, Kylo concludes he is broken. He's done. It's over.

His master will know about his failure, despite his success in fulfilling his task, the same way he knows about the light threatening to pull Kylo under. At least this way the Supreme Leader will think Kylo Ren died gloriously in battle when the signal from the position sensor in his belt winks out.

 _What the kriffing hell were you thinking?_

It isn't the first time he's asked himself what this is all for. The question has been gnawing at him like a bad tooth, a minor irritation that grew into a nightmare before he knew what was happening to him. It's like his Jedi training all over again; that underlying fear that he's following a path not for him. So, what is it all for? Order? Peace?

 _What use is peace and order if the galaxy has been left in ruin?_

The memory of the sudden deafening silence from millions of souls in the wake of Starkiller's red beam overshadows all else in Kylo's mind. He didn't know just how much he could feel of the world around him until a significant part of it was gone, and he can stomach some rare horrors for his grandfather's vision. Kidnapping, torture, massacre...

Patricide.

Fuck. What had he been thinking? Let's poke the old man a little, just to see what happens?

 _What the hell did you do?_

He's at war. There must be sacrifices.

Kriff, how he wishes the old scoundrel had never come to Starkiller Base.

Then his mother would have died in his father's place. Or maybe he'd have felt both of them getting snuffed out as the weapon fired, and not just his father's life siphoning away as his body fell.

What a choice to make.

Maybe if he'd had stayed in bed, things wouldn't have gotten this bad.

Surely...

Kylo shifts in the snow and reaches for his lightsaber with his good hand, biting back a pained cry. The battle fever has faded, and the motion pulls at the wound in his side. Hissing through his teeth, he blinks through the pain and reaches again with a shaking hand, searches with the Force for his weapon.

There's no trace of it. The snow doesn't give it up. He stretches his mind to the edge of the crater that has opened near his feet and finds nothing.

 _Kriff._

Pulling his arm underneath himself he moves to get up and this time he does scream. Pain rips through his injuries, but what has him falling back to the forest floor, his eyesight whiting out, is the crippling fire that floods his right shoulder.

 _Shit, shit, shit!_

Fuck him. Fuck the Sith and the Jedi alike. But most of all fuck the pipsqueak of a fucking scavenger from the forsaken fucking junkyard excuse of a fucking planet that goes by the fucking name of Jakku.

The pain peaks, and Kylo's breath stops in his throat. For a moment the torment is so furious he almost passes out, and in the seconds of lucidity he curses the treetops above.

When the pain fades into an agonizing burn he's lying on his side, clutching his shoulder and gasping into the snow. Something inside the wound has gone terribly wrong. Through the grace of his training he has learned to draw power from pain, but _damn it!_ She messed him up good. Stabbed and sliced him open worse than any opponent has ever managed, all without a lick of Force training. Out of all the things that have gone wrong over the past few days, his inability to hide his weakness from the Supreme Leader, the total annihilation of the Hosnian system, Han Solo dying for nothing, and the girl refusing him, this is what has him sobbing for the first time in years. His arm, the one he wields his lightsaber with, won't fucking move.

She really did a number on him, this scavenger girl, this desert rat, standing in the light, but with so much rage underneath her skin. This no one, with so much potential and power she could level entire worlds on her own, and she doesn't even know it. A girl with such hunger, who could become awe-inspiring with the right guidance, and she'd much rather leave him for a traitorous stormtrooper than follow Kylo Ren into greatness. It's as if the Force itself conjured up the perfect person, someone who could understand his burden, only to snatch her away and spit in his face as it does so.

Getting out of bed was definitely a colossal mistake.

Lying there in the freezing snow, still breathing heavily from pain and exertion, he comes to the conclusion that the universe has decided to screw him over.

So...

Screw the universe right back.

He's done. He's so fucking done with it all he could combust. If this is the end of Starkiller Base, why not him? There's nothing left. The Supreme Leader will dispose of him, if not now then eventually, and if Kylo had any delusions of going 'home' before he stabbed the General's husband, there's certainly none of that left now. What remains of the Republic will grant him a swift execution or a lifetime's worth of imprisonment.

And what of Leia Organa?

Well.

Her son is dead isn't he?

There's no future for him outside his Master's apprenticeship. He has no means build a new organization with, one that could succeed where the First Order fails. Kriff, his own training isn't even finished yet. What can he do that the Supreme Leader can't?

The stars above fade for a moment as a sharp light cuts through the treetops. The familiar whine of a spaceship reaches him just before the silhouette of it flashes across the sky and booms out of the planet's gravity well. Kylo knows, with only a slight sting of disappointment and regret, maybe even some relief, that the Millennium Falcon is going back to the Resistance.

He could have been on that ship.

Han Solo could have been on that ship.

Snow piles around his ears now, falls into his eyes in thick, wet patches. The planet hasn't complained of its imminent destruction for a while now, and the only sound is the faint wind rustling the trees. It's peaceful, and he realizes that what he's feeling is complete and utter calm.

Strange.

(Ben! The name ricochets off the walls of the large chamber. Ben is dead. There's nothing for you here, so just go. Run. Why won't you run?)

He's really kriffing cold.

Something _warps_. The force ripples, a veil is brushed aside just outside of his peripheral vision, and all of a sudden Kylo's nerves stand on edge. He can't explain it, because he doesn't even remotely understand it.

It's like seeing someone in the corner of one's eyes only to turn and find that it is just a shadow. Just his mind playing tricks on him.

Only it's not a trick. All of a sudden he's no longer alone in the forest.

"Get up."

The effect is not unlike the way the Supreme Leader will sometimes speak to him through the Force if the distance between them is short enough. But the Supreme Leader isn't here; Kylo would have felt it. This presence is nothing he has ever known before. The tone is stern, but calm. Somehow familiar and at the same time not.

"Get up," it repeats.

Kylo turns his head towards the voice, and fails that simple act by proxy as the voice doesn't come from anywhere but inside his own mind. "Who's there?"

"Never mind who's there. You need to get up now."

Kylo considers the presence for a bewildering moment, trying to remember if blood loss causes hallucinations. He remembers he's about to die, and decides it's unimportant. "No."

"No?"

"No."

A pause.

"Why not?"

"Why?"

This person, whoever they are, does a very good job of gesturing wildly to the crumbling surroundings for something without visible arms, if it has any at all.

"This planet is falling apart," it exclaims.

"Really?" Kylo says. "Are you sure?"

"You'll get crushed!"

"That's the point!" Kylo scowls at nothing. He's been bleeding for the better part of the last, what, twenty minutes? How long since he stood on that bridge, facing Han Solo for the last time? The fall had lasted an eternity. The moment after, when he came to the realization that the old man was irrevocably gone, took at least two.

Kylo sniffs, and cringes at how wet his sniveling sounds. His throat hurts like he's been wounded there too, and his eyes sting. He wipes at his face with his good hand. "What does it matter anyway? he croaks.

"It does not," the voice says. "Or I should say it does not to me at least."

 _Right._

"Regardless, it matters to the living that you live."

Shifting his head to the other side, Kylo tries to catch the owner of the voice. It doesn't help much; there's no one there. "Who are you?"

"I told you never mind – oh, kriffing hell. Will it get you up if I told you?"

It won't, but that doesn't mean Kylo's curiosity hasn't spiked. "Sure."

"I'm Anakin Skywalker, your grandfather."

Kylo scoffs. "Bantha fodder."

The presence cocks its nonexistent head. "How so?"

"I've talked to my grandfather before. I know his signature. You're not Darth Vader."

"My mother named me Anakin," the voice corrects, sounding irritated. "It's the name my friends knew me by and that's who, – did you just say I once spoke to you?"

"My grandfather did." Kylo's never told that to anyone except the Supreme Leader, but hell, what does it matter now?

"Huh."

"What?"

"That explains a great deal."

"Explains what?"

"How the son of a rogue smuggler finds himself in the clutches of a Dark Lord. I would have thought there'd be too much of Han Solo in you, to want to live your life under the tyranny of another, Ben Organa-Solo."

"Don't say that name."

"Fine, fine. Then don't call me Darth Vader."

The seething indignity of being scolded pushes aside his irritation. He's the Master of the Knights of Ren; that ought to count for something. "The Supreme Leader is wise." The words are a mantra; he does it a disservice by spitting it out. "And you're not my, –"

"I tell you what. How about you get yourself off this rock and I'll prove it to you?"

Nonexistent hands spread in an offering. A deal? Kylo quickly weighs the prospect of oblivion versus a future of more failure and pain. He stays put.

The presence huffs. "You're really not getting up, are you?"

"No."

"Why did I think this would be easy?" it mumbles, and though its words ring in Kylo's head he knows it's speaking to itself. "Fine. See what I care? Not like we can't still talk when you're dead. Then you'll know who I am." The presence speaks with the kind of faux finality even a child can recognize as bait, and Kylo distinctly senses the ghost turning its back on him.

"It won't matter," Kylo tells it, and its focus comes back to him. "I don't care who you are, I'm not going back. It ends here."

The ground rumbles. Violent tremors shake through it; juggernauts fighting to escape a black hole. Across the newly opened canyon a half a dozen trees breaks apart from the rest of the forest and sinks from view with the sound of rock grinding against rock.

There are eyes on Kylo, thought he can't see them. His shoulder and side, as well as the burn from where the traitor cut him, throbs badly. The snow around the bowcaster wound has turned dark; the blood cooling quickly as it exits his body. For a long while there's only silence from the ghost. Kylo feels himself being studied intently, and without the ability to turn his face away he closes his eyes, tries to meditate to dampen his aches. There's no more need for pain, and besides, he's so tired of it.

"May I?" Although Kylo isn't looking he knows the ghost indicates the ground besides him.

"Do whatever you like," he says. " I don't care."

There is no body to flatten the snow to Kylo's left, but he still feels something settling there in the Force, crossing its nonexistent ankles and folding its nonexistent hands on its nonexistent chest. How come he has such clear impressions of what it's doing, yet he cannot see it?

"I'm going to be dead for this," the ghost grumbles, and then corrects itself. "Dead-er."

"By whose hand?" Kylo asks. Small talk. Why is he making small talk? He hates small talk.

"Someone with a strong right hook."

The air fills with a sound like thunder followed by a long, deep, gravelly moan. That's the sound, Kylo thinks, of a dying Leviathan. An endless creature out of time, out of his childhood books. His heart thuds at his ribs, and he sweats despite the cold. The ghost doesn't even flinch.

"Nothing like imminent death to loosen your tongue," it says. "So tell me. How did you end up becoming Kylo of the Knights of Ren?"

Another bouldering groan shakes the earth. This time, Kylo jerks from the noise, his breathing slightly elevated. "The Supreme Leader is wise," he repeats without thinking.

"Don't give me that," the ghost says. "I know a lie when I hear one. What's the truth?"

There'd always been _something._ A glitch in the way Kylo saw the world. He knew people. He knew they communicated from the other side of the glass wall, but he could never quite grasp what they were saying. He always seemed to be hearing them from across a vast fields of information; like capsules of knowledge meant to be unlocked were hidden in their words, but he didn't have the key. As a child, he carved the words of the adults around him onto the inside of his skull so he could scavenge them for answers later, because he could never understand what it was they wanted from him. Then there was the fun of watching their confusion and disappointment whenever hints of his real self slipped out.

The revelation of his true heritage, as devastating as it had been in the beginning, had been a gift: To realize that it wasn't he who didn't seem to think the way other people did, but they who didn't think like him. The answer had been hidden from him by the people who should have loved him. So he'd cut those bonds, and followed his true path under the guidance of someone who understood, the Supreme Leader.

"Peculiar," the ghost muses, "it wasn't like that for me." Kylo frowns, because out loud he has said nothing. But before he can mention it the ghost goes on. "I was offered a way to save my family," it says with quiet regret.

Kylo hasn't bought into the claim that he's talking to his own grandfather just yet. The legends speak of a man with a great vision of a galaxy in order, remade in the image of peace, a man with the iron will and means to make it happen. A petty thing like family couldn't be the reason he turned to the dark. It doesn't make sense. What about power?

Still...

"That's how you see it," the ghost says. "I held the life of my own son in my hands, half of what was left in this universe after my wife, and you think I should have let him die for some ill-conceived version of galactic peace. No. I already knew what loss by my own hands felt like. It's a mistake you won't make twice, Kylo Ren, mark my words."

Nor does it seem that he'll get the chance to, because again, the ground gives an earsplitting roar and shakes, this time so violently it throws Kylo around like dice in a cup. His shoulder screams, and he thinks he might be screaming too, because the agony is so blinding he can't be sure. And for a fraction of a second he senses from somewhere far away, light-years already, someone else's signature, a heartbeat seeking out his own mind's constant thrum.

The next second it stops; the noise, the shaking as well as the pain. Kylo lies panting as warmth floods his shoulder, radiating from a hand he can't see. His body could float with the sudden relief.

"I think we've had enough of that," the ghost says, sounding somehow older, and strangely tired. Kylo has a question on his tongue, but something diverts the ghost's attention.

"There's a shuttle," it remarks. "Coming this way. Six stormtroopers and some young general. He seems familiar. A relative of Commandant Hux, I presume judging by the, – Hey. Hey! What are you doing?"

Hux.

So the Supreme Leader has ordered that slime-ball to come and pick up his apprentice. The snotty git must be besides himself with indignity for being given such a task. Regardless of what feelings the general has on the matter, Kylo is not about to give the ugly brat the satisfaction of finding him carved up and half dead.

"I'm getting up." Kylo scuffles around and slips in the snow with his one working hand, his limbs stiff from the cold, but no longer hurting.

"What?" the ghost exclaims. "Why? I mean excellent! But why?"

"I told you. I'm not going back, and that shuttle is here to get me." With difficulty Kylo's on his feet and takes off, limping at first, then running as his limbs warm up. Whatever the ghost did to him, it works like bacta applied to his brain stem. He can't feel a thing. He has to clutch his right arm to his chest to keep it from flapping around.

He follows the boiling wound in the earth that had separated him from the scavenger, probably saving his life in the process. Logically, he should be throwing himself into the fiery pit and not making his way along it, but now that he's running he's really running, swerving between the trees like he once did in the forests of his childhood, fighting imaginary battles alongside kids whose names he can no longer remember, on a planet that perished less than a day ago. It would be potentially exhilarating if it wasn't so terrifying.

"They're changing course," the ghost says, still there in his mind, not sounding at all tired. "They're still following you."

 _Damnit._ The position sensor. Kylo's still carrying it.

He skids, grappling with his belt where the device is hidden inside. He fumbles with his only useful hand and gets it unbuckled only to have it slip in his frozen hand when he tugs at it. It pulls on the fabric where it has been sewn to the back of his tunic, and try as he might Kylo doesn't have the strength left in his fingers to rip it off. Someone in the First Order must have put stock in keeping him on a tight leash, and Kylo wouldn't put it past him that this someone is General Hux.

That asshole.

He has to stop to yank his tunic over his head, but with only the help of one working arm it catches at his neck, choking him. Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren found dead on Starkiller base. Cause of death: self strangulation by a piece of fucking cloth.

Great.

"Oh, for the sake of the Maker give it here." A sharp tug, and the tunic is gone. The freezing air goes straight through Kylo's sweat-dampened under-layers, and he's left shivering. The scavenger girl had been bare shouldered, dressed for a desert's climate, not Starkiller. He doesn't get much time to further contemplate how cold she must have been, because the lights cut through the trees and then Kylo's moving again, away from the shuttle, away from that sour-faced General Hux, and away from what has been his life for the last seven years.

"This way." The ghost indicates a path that leads away from the burning crack in the ground. Kylo stumbles mindlessly through the snow, and falls on his face when another tremor shakes the planet.

He's going to die here.

That's just his kriffing luck.

He gets to his feet and continues. His fingers and toes are ice now, his side sticky with blood, and twice he comes to a halt, leaning against a tree because his vision keeps blacking out. The second time he sinks to one knee, heaving for breath. His legs are duracrete, and they're shaking. Exhaustion had already taken him before Hux's shuttle arrived. He can't run much longer.

"Just a little further," the ghost says, sounding agitated but resolute.

Between the trees a clunky, black, angular shape appears, materializing into a downed shuttle as Kylo trudges closer. _Crashed,_ he thinks, _useless_. Behind him lights filter through the forest again and are gone.

"No. Just a happy landing." If Kylo had the energy to spare he would have rolled his eyes at the joke. The ghost is right though, the shuttle appears to have had more of a rough landing than a crash.

He shambles inside. Two dead stormtroopers greet him. The one in the pilot's seat has a blaster stuck to its dangling, lifeless hand, while the weapon of the other one lies not far from its body as if dropped when the trooper fell. It's a strange scene, not quite right. They had been facing each other, but why? Then it hits Kylo that he has just walked in on what is the aftermath of an attempted treason against the First Order. These two killed each other, because one tried to leave.

 _Good for you, traitor. Good for you._ Hysterical laughter sits in Kylo's chest, but he has enough control to hold it back.

He doesn't get to the controls, because the next second the floor moves and Kylo is thrown sideways. His head collides hard with the bulkhead. All the air leaves him at the impact, and though he lands on his feet he doesn't have the strength to keep himself standing. He slumps down onto his ass, his head swimming. Ones, twice, he pushes his legs underneath himself to get up, but the trek has worn him out.

Kylo's eyelids fall heavily, his body has turned numb, and his head hangs without his permission. Something warm and wet creeps down from his hairline and over his cheek. His hands lie limply in his lap. Kylo commands them to make fists, and watches as only his left digits weakly curl and uncurl, fingertips not even making contact with the palm. He can't even muster up the energy to figure out how he feels about that.

Maybe this isn't so bad. He could rest here, just for a bit. A year or two perhaps, or forever, like his father before him.

He's just so kriffing tired.

The shuttle nudges gently, and a faraway hum fills the tight space, soothing him. Something falls on Kylo, some sort of fabric, and though it's coarse, it's warm, and he pulls it over his shoulders with his numb fingers. The familiar feeling of low aerial flight provides a rocking motion, and for a moment his blood-deprived brain takes him back to the Millennium Falcon, to the alcove he'd taken for his own, stuffed with a mattress, pillows and a blanket; his plastic rebels and troopers; his books. In that space he'd made for himself he'd ones slept, and had nightmares about this day. About Kylo Ren and Han Solo standing together on a bridge. One moment his father was there, then next he wasn't, and Ben had known this was the future and that it was his adult self behind that mask. No amount of comfort could pacify a child who knew he would one day kill his own father.

He wishes it didn't have to happen, he really does, but the dark demands sacrifices, and -

 _That's a lie,_ his fuzzy brain argues. _That's complete crap and you know it._

Is it?

He can't see how.

In its last moments of lucidity his mind snarls on something nearly intangible, a thought, an idea. It's a good thought, it really is. He'll consider it after he's had some sleep. When he's rested…. When he wakes up... He'll consider it.

He will...

* * *

 ** _Please let me know if you enjoyed this!_**


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes up in pain. From muddled dreams Kylo opens his eyes to an unfamiliar room. The walls appear dark gray in the dim shine from a single lamp. Ominous steel equipment lines the surface of a metal table just by his bed. His heart leaps and Kylo jerks himself into a sitting position.

His right arm hangs limp by his side and as he moves lightning bolts shoot through his spine. He grunts, screwing up his face against the pain as he fights vertigo. The skin across his cheek feels stiff, paperlike. There's wrapping around his stomach that hampers his movements. A tube of red leads from a bag hanging over his head to the crook of his left arm. Blood transfusion.

Something moves by the door.

"Sir, I highly recommend that you rest. The bacta needs another hundred and twenty-three minutes for optimal healing. You'll also need additional transfusions of, -" The old 2-1B droid has its empty eyes turned on him. Kylo's on his feet, reaching out with his good hand, intending to grab and crush.

Stars bloom across his vision, and a hot iron rod pierces his brain. Kylo finds himself down on one knee, clutching his head, sweating cold, and queasiness churning in his stomach. The inside of his elbow stings from where the needle was yanked out as he fell.

He can't reach the Force.

"Please Sir, I really must ask you to go back to your bed." The droid's feet enter his line of sight, shuffling over the old and worn, but clean floor.

He can't _reach_ the Force.

The steel appliances make a musical clatter as the table they lie on is upturned by the droid's flailing arm as it falls. Kylo's at the door and it slides open with a hydraulic hiss without him having to force any locks. Behind him the droid exclaims another outraged " _Sir!"_ after him as he stumbles through, holding on to his limp arm.

Kylo stands in the intersection of two meeting hallways. They both look exactly the same, worn down and grimy. He turns his head this way and that, but each route seems as good as the other. Kylo reaches out through the Force and as a result staggers against the wall, crying out as his skull tries to split in two.

Another door hisses open to his right, and he looks up through his blurred vision, to see a woman with wide, alert eyes and black hair stepping out from a door further down the corridor to his right. She stops in her tracks when she sees him.

"Hey, you're not suppose to be up." Her hand hangs by the side of her hip where a handblaster is strapped. Kylo chooses the opposite hallway, leaving the woman, like the medical droid, shouting after him in his wake.

He only gets a few yards ahead, before the sound of footsteps make themselves known coming down a set of stairs at the end of the hallway. A pale, blond, burly man stops on the last step and scowls when he sees Kylo. This one carries no blaster and Kylo decides that right now the unarmed obstacle is his best option.

Too bad he forgot to take his dysfunctional arm into consideration when he made the decision.

Kylo's swing at Scowling Guy misses by a good margin, his movements slow and uncoordinated. His opponent gets him in an armlock far too easily. There's a sensation like something ripping in Kylo's shoulder, and like the idiot he is, he grabs for the Force again.

His vision whites out, and something solid collides with his side. This 'something' is probably the floor because it hits all of him at once. The hallway swims before his eyes, and he clutches the surface underneath him as best he can. For several seconds, there is nothing he can do but lie there and wait out the agony in his shoulder and brain, as well as the overwhelming dizziness. He barely even remembers that he's not alone.

"Kriff, Nine. What did you do?"

"I didn't do nothing. He swung at me first and then he just collapsed."

"Nevermind. Go get Cap, will yah."

But the sound of more footsteps making their way downstairs arrive before anyone can go anywhere.

"Cap, I told you," the man argues, his voice sending blaster bolts through Kylo's head, "I told you we should have airlocked this guy. I told you!"

"Move," this new person says. "Let Doc and I handle this."

Somewhere from down the hall the voice of the medical droid pipes up, saying something Kylo can't distinguish. Someone pacifies it with a few words.

A new face comes into Kylo's line of sight, another woman kneeling down by his side. Lots of tightly coiled hair, black with streaks of white drawn back into a bun. When she speaks it's in a deep, calm voice. "Matt. Hey, easy now. You're all right. My name is Adilet. I'm the captain of this ship."

Kylo hoists himself up only to fall back down again. The walls spins and his head protests at the sudden movement.

Blast, it _hurts._

"You've sustained an injury to your head," the woman with the blaster says. "Confusion, dizziness and nausea are all normal symptoms of a concussion. You should rest."

"Ok, big guy." The Captain reaches out for his arm. "Come on. Let's get you back to bed."

Kylo slaps her hand away, but it's more of a uncommitted flapping of his arm in her general direction. "Unhand me," he slurs more than snarls. Despite how much his body just seems to want to lie back down, he manages to get himself into a sitting position against the bulkhead.

Scowling Guy barks a laugh. "Watch out. We got a live one here." His face falls flat at the look the women gives him. The captain turns her attention back to Kylo.

"That is fine. We'll just sit here until you feel like you can walk by yourself." She plants herself back against the opposite wall, resting her elbows on her knees and lacing her fingers together, her steady gaze on Kylo. The other two remain standing on either sides of her, like guards. "I would like to speak to you anyway, and right here is as good as any place."

It's not a good feeling, having someone standing over him. Kylo's height always has him looking down on people and his mask provides a comfortable steel barrier against their stares. Captain Adilet has put herself at his level, and now Kylo finds himself at the uneasy position of having to meet her eyes. The place at his hip, where his lightsaber used to hang, feels too light, too empty, and he notes that the clothes he wears, while they cover most of his body, are flimsy compared to the layers of protection he's used to.

He looks from the worn boots adorning the Captain's feet, to the grease-blackened hands of Scowling Guy to the the tear in the shirtsleeve of the woman with the blaster. They are civilians. Kylo remembers civilians. Generally harmless, non-Force sensitive people. He should be able to handle those. Hell, he used to be one himself once.

Kylo probes, tentatively this time, and finds in the place of the Force only a surface like broken glass to brush against. Nausea wells up in his stomach and he has the urge to put his face between his knees and hurl. Of all things, this shouldn't be happening. This should be easy.

"What did you do to me?" he demands.

"As I said, you've suffered a concussion," the woman with the blaster responds. "Nothing to do about that but to rest, mostly. A serious blaster hit to your left kidney, so you only got one now. It's nothing you can't live without. I could even grow you a new one if you hang around. Hypothermia. Don't worry, I saved all your toes. Slight dehydration. You were nearly dead from hypovolemia, that's blood loss, when we found you. Judging from your color alone I still think you could do with another transfusion, but you'll live to see another day without it. Some bumps and bruises." She counts off his injuries on her fingers while listing them in rapid succession. "Let's see. Multiple lacerations, all of which have strangely enough been cauterised. I would like to see the weapon that did that, by the way. Most of these aren't a problem. That one however," she pauses and gestures towards Kylo's shoulder, "is a bit of a mess. I'm not a neurological specialist so that one's beyond my expertise. I did my best to save the arm, but you won't be juggling stun batons any time soon. Your face on the other hand I've mostly fixed." She raises her hand palm down and wiggles it, a slight grimace crossing her mouth. "-ish. That said, if you need your arm fully functioning again you'll have to go to a medicenter where they are equipped to deal with that kind of injury, and since you don't have any ID other than the 'Matt, First Order Radar Technician' tag we found on your vest there aren't many facilities in our vicinity right now that are willing to take you in. Call us prejudiced, but that's what happens when the organisation you work for blows up an entire solar system." She finishes with a shrug.

"Lucky for you we've dealt with First Order deserters before," Captain Adilet says. Scowling Guy makes an a small huff. "What I would like to know is are you going to be a problem to me and my crew?" the Captain continues.

Kylo blinks. His mind moves past the subject of being called 'Matt the Radar Technician' straight to the condition of his arm. It's mostly numb, slightly tingling at the fingertips, but it also feels heavy and unwieldy as he tries to move it. Nothing happens.. He needs his right arm. He wields his saber, (the saber which he has incidentally lost) with both hands, but the right one is the dominant one.

Then there's the fact that he's blocked from the Force. Kylo tries to think, to remember if there's anything in his training that spoke of such a thing, but if there is, it slip through his mind like water between his fingers. The mere idea of going without the Force is worse than the fact that he's without a weapon.

"N-no medicenters," Kylo gruffs, and is horrified to find himself stuttering.

The two women share a glance, and the one with the blaster, which the Captain referred to as Doc, sits down on her haunches. Scowling Guy remains standing, his arms crossed in front as he, well, _scowls_ down at Kylo.

"Matt, do you remember what happened to you before you woke up here?"

Starkiller, scavenger, traitor, father... _Don't._

When he doesn't reply the Captain speaks. "We found your shuttle floating in empty space, sending out emergency signals. I'm afraid the people you were with didn't make it. It looked as though you'd been betrayed." She waits long enough before speaking again for Kylo to feel as if he needs to say something.

"I didn't know them." He clears his throat. "Very well," he adds after a short pause.

The Captain stares at him with sharp eyes. She can't be Force sensitive, Kylo thinks, but there's a familiarity in her gaze that reminds him of the way General Leia Organa used to look at him when he was a teenager, like there's deduction happening behind them that cuts through the core of what little he is saying. There's something else too, in the arch of her brow, the shape of her nose and the jut of her jawline, that Kylo can't quite pin down. Captain Adilet nods.

"This is Doctor Mana Maer and you've already shook hands with our loadmaster and self appointed security detail." She gestures to each of her crew in turn. "Don't worry about Nine here. He hates everyone equally." Scowling Guy, or Nine, though he keeps glowering at Kylo, rolls his eyes.

"You're on my ship," the Captain says. "This is The Halcyon."

"Am I a prisoner?" Kylo asks.

She shakes her head. "Believe me, I have more than enough reason to resent the First Order, but this is a cargo-freighter and we're not in the business of capturing refugees for the Republic. Or what's left of it anyhow," she adds pointedly. "We can let you off when we hit dirt. That'll be in a day and a half. We have very little time to go off-route. Though I don't think Doc here would recommend leaving, considering the state you're in."

Kylo clenches his jaw and looks to the stairway. Because he hates himself apparently, he brushes the malevolent, razor sharp surface where he normally finds the Force. Needles prick at his temples, and the lights in the ceiling flares, but none of the people around him seems to notice. He's without the Force, without a weapon, without the use of his arm, and probably sick.

Captain Adilet leans forward and eyes him sharply. "I don't know what's going through that brain of yours, Matt, but I give you my word that no one on this ship, neither me nor my crew, will cause you any trouble. That is unless you start trouble first. You harm anyone, and you are going to have a hot date with the airlock. Are we clear? We're just a small team, and we don't want any funny business. Especially not with the First Order."

At this point the light coming from above has become a painful glare in Kylo's eyes, and he can't help but groan as it causes his head to throb. His hand comes up to his face. Again he wants to throw up.

"We should get him somewhere he can sleep," he hears Doctor Maer say through the stabs of pain. "Ok, Matt. There's a nice, dark room for you just around the corner. No prison cells, I promise. You can even plot your escape after I've administered some pretty awesome painkillers, if I should say so myself. How does that sound?"

And ok, he's feeling fairly shitty as of right now, and a dark room sounds like kriffing paradise. Getting the hell out of dodge can wait. Kylo doesn't let anyone help as he staggers to his feet with considerable effort. Doctor Maer leads him to a door across from the one he'd previously seen her leave. He accepts two pills for the pain. Somewhere in the back of his mind a voice says he shouldn't trust a complete stranger, but fuck it. He's so sick of pain.

The doctor doesn't leave Kylo alone until she has checked his bandages, and he's just too exhausted to fend her off. She settles for making sure nothing is bleeding, all the while complaining about the possibility of ripped open wounds and patients who should not be out of bed. Apparently they don't have a bacta tank on the ship. He listens with half an ear as she prattles on about being just across the corridor and if he needs anything just holler, oh, and there's a fresher in the corner, and she'll leave a bottle of water on the little table by the cot, _and_ she'll bring him a meal once he wakes up. And, and, _and…._

Then, thankfully, the doctor leaves, door swishing closed behind her. Kylo lies down on the bed. Thin mattress. Thin pillow. Warm blanket. He waits until the aches in his body ebb away into the cool air in the room, and then sinks into dark, blissful sleep.

* * *

When Kylo wakes hours later, his first thought is; he is out. He is _out!_

 _Fuck._ He's out.

He turns his head over the side of the cot and dry heaves. No, no, no, this can't be happening. He's an idiot and now he's gone and turned himself into a defector, a traitor of the worst kind to the Supreme Leader, the Knights of Ren and the First Order. He has to go back. He _needs_ to go back. The punishment will be excruciating, but it'll be nothing against what awaits him if he continues to stay away. Kylo sits up on the bed, drawing the fingers of his left arm through his hair. He pulls at it until it hurts.

What then? He has weakness inside himself and the task of proving his worth to the Supreme Leader will be ten times as hard as it was before. Leaving wasn't just a mistake, it's a kriffing nightmare. If he's to go back it needs to be without the doubts that have been eating at him. He has to be remade in the dark, as sure in his convictions as the day when he first came to Supreme Leader Snoke.

"Grandfather, help me."

Kylo startles to find the response so immediate.

"What do you need?"

He raises his face to the room. Just like on Starkiller, there's no one to see, but the presence he'd felt is there, as tangible as his own mind. Stopping a pathetic sob of relief from leaving his mouth, Kylo lets himself believe.

"Show me again the power of the darkness."

The pause that follows lasts for so long that for a second he fears it was all just a trick of the mind after all. The voice that led him off of Starkiller is not real.

"Excuse me?" is the eventual response.

"Forgive me." Kylo screw his face up at the admission, hiding his shame. There's a reason he always did his confessions with the mask on. "I feel it again. The call to the light."

Getting out of the bed, he winces as his injuries are jostled, and starts to pace the length of the small room in sheer agitation. "Show me the power of the darkness and I'll let nothing stand in our way."

"I'm afraid I can't do that."

Kylo stops, his heart thudding against his ribs. What? "But you must," Kylo says with a hint of growing terror in his voice.

"Why are you asking this of me?"

"Why won't you help me?"

"And lead you back into the dragon's lair?" the ghost says. "You know, flying a shuttle is no easy feat without a corporeal body. I didn't do all that for nothing. You said you were getting out. What changed?"

What changed? Darth Vader came to guide him away from his own terrible mistakes. "The Supreme Leader relies on me, but I can't do his bidding with the light always in the back of my head. I'm weak. The light, it's calling to me. Sometimes it's all I hear." Kylo's voice grows increasingly louder as he talks. Doctor Maer spoke of hollering, but the bulkhead is solid and no sounds can be heard from outside the room.

"Yes, the light has a tendency to do that," the ghost says with an air of long suffering resignation.

For the first time in as long as he can remember, Kylo pleads. "I thought I could get rid of it, but it keeps coming back. I'm failing. No matter what I do, it always comes back."

"Yes, hello! That might actually at least been partially me all along," the ghost says. "Formerly known as Darth Vader? Dark Lord turned back to the light right before he died? I've been trying to get through to you for a long time."

A buzzing sound forms in Kylo's ears, shutting all else out. Is this a joke? After everything, Darth Vader won't help him? Staring at the wall in front of him, Kylo's vision narrows until the edges are thick black, forming a tunnel where he can see the room like he's looking at it through the wrong end of a spying-glass. The words of the ghost mix with the buzzing and the resulting noise grows into a klaxon that echoes in his mind.

His fist meets the wall.

Kylo draws his hand back, his head ringing, and he strikes again. What has he made of himself?

Again.

If he's not powerful he's useless. Without the guidance of the Supreme Leader he's nothing.

Again.

Worthless, worthless, _worthless_.

"Hey, _hey!_ Stop that." The voice barely cuts through the vortex in his mind, so easy to ignore. "You're going to hurt yourself. Ben!"

Kylo whirls on the empty room. "DON'T CALL ME THAT NAME!"

He stands panting, facing the single door, and for several seconds the following silence is so oppressive he thinks, for the second time since he woke, that he has lost it. He's shouting at nothing.

"Your hand," the ghost says.

Blood runs from the knuckles of Kylo's good hand, small patches of skin hanging loose over two of them. The hand shakes, and something inside has gone crooked. Fractured. The dull pain barely registers. Kylo lets out a hollow huff.

How's he going to piss on his own now?

"Sit down," the ghost says, and Kylo obediently arranges himself on the bed, feet flat besides one another, and his broken hand on his thigh. His ears still rings. Invisible fingers wrap around the damaged hand, and a slow warmth envelops it. The skin knits itself together and the bones reset with a little painless pop.

"There you go." The voice is dark but calming somehow, an echo of something Kylo has long forgotten. He thinks about his saber hand, useless and limp at his side, and the sharp barrier between him and the Force.

"Bones and muscles I know," the ghost says, answering his thoughts. "Nerves however were always a pain in the ass to heal. I never could get the hang of it. And I don't know why you can't reach the Force. Concussions can do odd things to people like us. I knew a girl who spent months levitating nothing but pebbles, and no one could figure out why. No, I can't heal you. So much for great power, huh."

That is just fucking inconvenient. Kylo shuts his eyes to the light, and takes several deep breaths.

"You tried to turn me to the light," he says. In his ears his tone is muffled, as if coming through the wall across from him.

"I nudged. In fact, most of what you've been feeling is purely you."

Kylo turns his hand in his lap, the skin not broken for a full minute before being healed. He'd spent so many hours in front of that hollowed out, broken and burned helmet, in the hopes that it would one day speak to him again. Now that said hopes have been fulfilled, he finds the things he's being told only fill him with dread.

"You said we'd never spoken before," Kylo says. "You told me on Starkiller Base we'd never spoken."

Ben Organa-Solo the boy had had frightening visions and premonitions. A shadow would stand by the end of the his bed and whisper words he didn't want to hear, that he was being lied to, that the truth was being kept from him. It wasn't easy for a child to understand why Darth Vader would come to him and say such things about his own family, but Ben had been a foolish kid. Before he embraced the identity of Kylo Ren that boy had been afraid even of his own thoughts.

It certainly doesn't seem right that this ghost should be the same spirit that came to Kylo back then. This being that talks very much like any other person, who bargains to keep Kylo alive and tells stupid jokes about shuttles landing 'happily' when he's buzzy running for his life. But this is his grandfather's ghost. Somehow Kylo knows that, just as he can feel the Force, but not touch it. He didn't want to see it on Starkiller, but right here and now he can't deny it.

"We never did speak," the ghost tells him. "I tried to get through, but you weren't listening, or, I suspect, something or someone were blocking me."

"Blocking you? Who?"

"Same person who pretended to be me. Palpatine, snake edition. Your former master, Snoke."

Kylo flinches. He's never heard anyone speak of the Supreme Leader with such derision. A fluttering of nerves runs through him at the harsh words, as if his master is right there to hear it. The controlled rage that so often rolls off the Supreme Leader in waves comes to mind. Kylo shivers.

It doesn't fit. He can't wrap his mind around the idea that the same person who always encouraged him to reach out to find Darth Vader's spirit would be the one who also kept him from communicating with him. If so there must be a reason for it. The Supreme Leader is, -

"Is wise," his grandfather supplies. "Yes, you've said as much already. He certainly doesn't have cauliflowers for brains, that for sure."

"You're lying."

The ghost is taken aback. "Am I?"

"I am Supreme Leader's greatest asset. I'm destined to -"

"Rule the galaxy and all the sentient species that live within its realms. That's how it goes isn't it? You need to save the lowly peasants from themselves lest they'd destroy themselves with too much free will. Only things never seem to turn out the way you expect them to, do they? Snoke's using you, and you know it."

An eerie chill runs down Kylo's spine to hear Han Solo's words echoed by Darth Vader's ghost.

"I wish you'd call me Anakin," the ghost sighs. "The truth is, the Supreme Leader is holding you back. He's got you on a tight leash even now. I'm certain he's found some way to keep you trapped even after you pulled this vanishing act."

"How would you know?" Kylo demands, and some part of him regrets the question as it comes out of his mouth; he might get an answer. "The Supreme Leader never lied to me."

"I can show you."

A light pressure falls on Kylo's temples, warm like the healing touch to his broken hand earlier. It's strange, but not unpleasant, the feeling of almost palpable fingers. At first that's all it is, then Kylo flinches as something in the back of his skull reacts. He hisses, because whatever it is it moves. A worm buried deep into the gray matter of his brain. He cringes as the alien thing writhes. The touch at his temples remains steady, but the worm seems to grow, and with it Kylo's head starts to ache. Not the piercing pain of when he tried to use the Force, but a swelling pressure that quickly turns from uncomfortable to unbearable. Kylo bites back a gasp, his face screwed up in a grimace. His mind is a rope in a tug of war, and the threads are breaking apart one by one right in the middle. Then, just as he thinks he can't take it any longer, it snaps.

Popped like an overripe fruit, and out it blooms, relief so staggering it's like his insides have suddenly grown too big for the shell of his body. It pushes the dread and conflict within him up against the edges of Kylo's mind until there's nowhere else for it to go but out. His eyes and mouth open wide with a shocked exhale. Just like that, he lets his head fall back and with the all encompassing sensation that floods his chest he starts laughing.

"Oh..." The ghost sounds spooked. "Well kriffing hell."

Kylo guffaws. A spooked ghost! That is _hilarious._

He can't breathe from laughing. Careening sideways onto the bed, Kylo clutches his stomach. He can't stop. This is ridiculous. Why can't he stop?

The kriff was that?

"That was your leash," the ghost answers, and Kylo gets the image of Darth Vader, all in black, holding a length of chain with a collar at the end, and it sends him into another bout of uncontrollable cackling.

What's kriffing wrong with him?

And there it is again, that strange connection he had on Starkiller before the ghost had numbed his pain. A deep, thrumming heartbeat, that coils around his awareness, confused but curious.

The scavenger.

For a brief moment it's like she's right there, standing in the room with her luminous halo around her. He could just reach out and, -

"I didn't expect the effect to be this potent," the ghost says, expelling the sense of her presence from Kylo's head. "How do you feel?"

Kylo blinks, an afterimage of the girl still shining in his mind. It's a difficult thing to do, but he manages to press out a reply in between desperate breaths. "Awful."

This is _amazing_. He is _flying_.

And there he goes again, giggling hysterically, like some deranged fool.

A brief touch presses to Kylo's forehead, and with it goes the manic mood, gone just as quickly as it came. But the euphoria leaves an aftertaste and it remains so great it's as if he's floating. Kylo's laughter trails off into coughing.

"What did you do?" He's panting, but finally able to string more than two words together again.

"I removed Snoke's own bastardized version of a Force bond. An insidious, but clever thing really. A one way connection between the two of you."

"Removed what? Snoke never, -"

"Calling him Snoke now are we? Not Supreme Leader? I'm afraid he did. Now the rest is up to you, and you alone."

Kylo gets up from the bed, his movements suddenly as awkward as the time in his youth when he'd gone through a considerable growth spurt. He'd been more of a menace to himself with a lightsaber than he'd been to others during that period. Now, every part of his body just feels so feathery light, even the injured arm at his side, that it seems as if just a simple push of the bed could send him rocketing head first into the opposite bulkhead.

"Tell me something, how long have you had the headaches?" Anakin asks.

"Since I woke up," Kylo answers.

"No, I'm not talking about the concussion. The headaches. How long have you had them?

"What are you kriffing talking about? What headaches?"

"I see."

"See what?" Kylo demands, but Anakin stays silent for a while. Even though he's still very much affected by the previous euphoria, Kylo is annoyed to learn out of all the traits the dead man could have passed on to General Leia Organa, caginess is one of them.

"I suspect the reason you don't know you've been in pain is because it's been coming on for a very long time. Possibly ever since you were an infant."

Kylo scoffs. Can death cause one to catch gibberish? Because what the ghost is saying is too far fetched. He didn't even know who Snoke was back then.

"How do you feel now?" Anakin asks.

Kylo contemplates the lightness of his head and how the gray durasteel walls suddenly seem to swim with color.

"High," he gruffs.

"I can imagine. It won't last. When your mind settles down, things will start to look different."

"Different how?"

"We'll just have to wait and see."

Damn him. Why did Kylo ever think his grandfather would have all the answers?

* * *

 ** _I'm planning on updating this story once per week until I'm caught up, but if you don't want to wait that long for the next instalment there's already fourteen chapters up on AO3. You can find the story here:_** ** _/works/8597167/chapters/19715788_**

 ** _If you enjoyed this please let me know!_**


	3. Chapter 3

For some reason Anakin has gotten it into his head that Kylo should go 'home', wherever the hell that is. 'Home' is a cloud of dusty matter floating around in the empty space where the Hosnian System used to be. 'Home' is a smugglers' route across the galaxy that changes every few years. 'Home' is a strangled existence of unquestioningly following the Jedi code. But Anakin's intention is clear: he means for Kylo to stand in front of General Leia Organa once again. Which incidentally also means finding his way to the Resistance, where he would without a doubt get lynched. As of right now Kylo doesn't know which of the two would be worse.

The word 'family' comes up again, along with the line 'make things right,' and also 'redemption,' like it's suppose to mean something. As if Kylo didn't have good reasons to leave all that behind in the first place. He might not technically be in the First Order anymore, that doesn't mean he intends to join the Resistance. But Anakin is insistent. There's something about the way he speaks of General Organa, like he expects Kylo to see reason where there's none. Kylo finds himself snapping more often at the ghost the longer the conversation goes on.

Then Anakin has to open his kriffing undead mouth about Han Solo and gets about half way into some excruciating speech about knowing what it's like to lose a parent and no.

 _No._

Kylo's not having _that_. He doesn't want anything to do with _that_.

"Will you shut up," he snaps, dragging his hand across his forehead. This is not how he imagined this would go. Never in his life as Kylo Ren did he think his grandfather would make his predicament worse. If only Anakin would just leave.

To his surprise the ghost does. In the frustration-filled quiet that falls between them Anakin simply evaporates. Kylo is glad. If his grandfather hasn't come to show him the power of the darkness, then he doesn't understand why he has come at all. Clearly, brainwashing is still a thing in the afterlife.

If he is going to find his way back to the First Order, to Sno– Supreme Leader Snoke's side he needs to be whole. Not this mess on the brink of... _that_. He's more torn than ever.

But in Anakin's absence Kylo's mind is free to wander, and doubt about going back creeps in like some terrible unbidden guest. The thoughts he had while he lay in the snow on Starkiller Base return, but instead of granting him peace they now make his palms sweat, and a cold acidic feeling fills his chest.

The Supreme Leader wouldn't.

Would he?

Not to Kylo Ren, no.

Certainly not.

Kylo accesses the adjoining 'fresher to make use of the facilities. A small mirror hangs over the sink, and in it he gets a good look at the extent of the damage across his face and neck. A layer of gelled bacta covers the wound that runs from underneath the neckline of his shirt diagonally all the way up to his hairline.

Good Maker above, his hair's a disaster.

Greasy, tangled locks hang in his eyes, flat and lifeless. Kylo looks around for something, anything and finds only hand soap. That won't do. He runs his hand through his hair, gathering it away from his eyes and roughing it up to make some semblance of volume, but with very little luck.

Taking a leak turns into a humbling experience; he has to actually think about how to handle himself without making a mess. An adult and he has to go through potty training all over again. His right arm just hangs there, the wrist bending at an awkward angle. Kriff.

 _Kriff._

That nasty little savage. He should have kicked her over that edge when he had the chance.

Only he wouldn't have.

There is _something..._

The effect of what Anakin has done to him has left Kylo in a funny way. The strange high from earlier has faded, replaced by an even stranger notion of everything seeming just a little bit tilted. Like some filter has been pulled over the world like they do in the holovids. Or maybe lifted is the right word. He feels like he's been untethered, like every molecule inside him is vibrating on a higher frequency than the rest of the universe around him and it might cause him to shake apart at any moment. He has this savage urge to run, not necessarily from anything, just run. Or fight. The same way he felt when he was a boy and sitting still by the dinner table long enough to eat everything on his plate was a war against his jittery limbs. The shared glints in his parents' eyes when –

Anyway.

So this _something_ that is going on with him, Kylo suspects, is the Scavenger. He saw her earlier, felt her presence. In the void left behind by whatever Anakin lifted from Kylo's mind, some small insignificant remnant of his short exchanges with her have bloomed fully into existence. It's just _her_. It tickles his mind as he rinses his hand under the tap. Kylo stops what he's doing in the middle of drying off and stares blindly into the rusted bulkhead in front of him.

He picks at the connection, but it wavers and flickers and is just all around unstable. Glimpses of places and people, sounds and smell, but nothing distinct enough to make out properly. In a past life, he used to have impressions of his family's whereabouts and their state of minds, sometimes vague, sometimes stronger. Yet this one is more distinct than any other bond he's had before. A Force bond, and _she's_ on the other end of it. How did that happen? Emotions sidle through, confusion, calm, but too often the emotion is _that._ Most of all Kylo senses _that._

As mesmerizing as this new connection is he'd rather not have _that_. No. Her feelings are raw, and earnest and dangerously compelling. He should cut her off, stop this, but she has literally taken root in his brain. Somehow he can't touch the Force, but these things from her mind are thrust upon him regardless. It's like he can only have what it decides to give him and he can't even say no to them.

The distraction from his current situation comes in the form of Doctor Maer and Nine. True to her word, the doctor brings Kylo a meal. For all her talk about him hollering if he needed something, she doesn't mention anything about yelling or uncontrollable laughter coming from his room. If she heard she has the good grace not to mention it.

They give Kylo what's left of his old clothes. But there must have been some mistake because for one thing he would have remembered it if he ever wore something that brightly orange. The tool vest and the gray jumpsuit is a mystery to him until he sees the name tag.

' _Matt, First Order Radar Technician.'_

Something tells him Anakin has everything to do with this. Kylo's pants and other undergarments are all there too, and they're all in tatters. The doctor had to cut him out of them to get to his injuries.

Right.

The food is some sort of synthesized porridge that actually doesn't taste as dull as Kylo expected. It's sweet, but not too sweet, with an underlying taste of real oats and cinnamon, thought the slimy texture with the occasional lumps leaves much to be desired. He forces down what he can manage, fumbling only a little with the spoon in his left hand. Doctor Maer and Nine leave Kylo alone as he eats, but when he pushes his bowl away, half finished, she takes it as her cue to start fussing. Or as she calls it, 'checking his injuries.' Either way it means Kylo has to tolerate getting poked and prodded.

Civilians. Again, remember those? He can endure this.

Nine hovers with his arms crossed nearby, that seemingly permanent scowl planted on his face.

"You don't have to be here," doctor Maer tells him. "What's Matt here gonna do? He's unarmed."

Nine rolls his eyes as she chortles at her own joke, but the corner of his mouth twists upwards just a little like some involuntary tic.

Kylo bristles. So far only one out of the three people he's met on the Halcyon seem to think of him as anything but harmless. He would've told her he could crush her skull with his mind, but then again he gets the feeling she's the kind of person who would ask him to prove it. If he'd been able to do that he wouldn't still be on this ship along with these people.

Maer swipes a bioscanner over Kylo's torso and head. She lingers with the device around his temple until it makes a soft clicking sound, and then nods to herself.

When she unwraps the bandages around Kylo's midriff, it reveals a hideous wound. Some part of Kylo is shocked that he'd still been fighting after a hit like that, the other part is shaken by the thought of who had taken the shot. He knows the mark of a bowcaster by sight and that it takes a certain kind of betrayal to anger a Wookiee, but he never actually considered...

Even after...

But that's not important.

Doctor Maer works quick and methodically, getting the wounds cleaned, bacta'd and bandaged soon enough. She moves on to the slash that stretches across Kylo's cheek and shoulder, which means she has to get all up in his kriffing face.

Civilian. Remember? It's fine. He's _fine._

"You got lucky with this one," she quips, and continues working as if Kylo's silence doesn't mean a thing. "The scar will hardly be noticeable once I'm done. Better if we'd gotten to you sooner. Maybe you'll even be prettier than before. I'm very good at what I do after all."

At this point reacting to other people in the room has become tiresome, as if Kylo can't make the muscles in his face do what he needs them to do to at least seem normal. The lights irritates him. Everything's still so saturated, and Maer's voice seems to bounce of the walls in a strange way. He sometimes finds himself grappling for the meaning of her words, distracted by some strong sensory input or another.

Though he can't touch the Force, the energy he senses through it coming from Nine and Dr. Maer strikes a nerve. A sense of fading shock and a heavy, pressing gloom that affects Kylo more than he'd like to admit hangs fresh in the air around them. In the in between moments of Maer's witty cleverness and Nine's constant sullenness they both seen to fall into a mind-numbing melancholy.

Dr. Maer peals the strip of gauze off of Kylo's shoulder, biting the inside of her lip as she does so. Brachial Plex – something or other she calls it. The clinical words drop out of Kylo's brain as soon as they enter. But what he understands is this: Three of the major nerves that connect his arm to his spine have been fried right through, rendering it useless. They've been reconnected, but the damage has already been done. Apparently Kylo now also has a synthetic piece of artery just above his collarbone. Much of the terminology goes right over his head, but he knows from experience that the area is a good place to seriously maim or render an enemy incapable of fighting back.

The scavenger couldn't have made her rejection any clearer, or punished him more severely.

What he takes from the doctor's words is, one: he's kriffing lucky lightsabers cauterize, because otherwise he would have bled to death a lot faster. Two: healing his arm is going to be a kriffing nightmare. And three: the fact that the blasted thing is still attached to him is a kriffing miracle.

Doctor Maer pricks his fingertips with a needle, and though he can feel it, Kylo can't move much of his hand. His fingers flutter weakly when she asks him to move them, but the elbow and shoulder joints remains unresponsive when she tells him to push them upwards against the hands she places on his shoulders. He's going to need a specialist, he hears the doctor repeat, her voice muffled like it's coming from another room, or else the arm will never work the way it used to.

In other words, he'll be using his left hand to jerk off until further notice.

In the end the doctor produces a sling for Kylo's arm from somewhere in her office, then she gives him a new dose of pain medicine. Having done that, she hands him a glass of water and makes him drink until it's empty. Then, blissfully, she and Nine leave Kylo alone, but not until after she's given him solid instructions to get some rest, and informed him that Captain Adilet will come by to see him later.

Although Kylo sort of resents her for the order he doesn't have to be told twice. Once the door closes behind the two he sinks back onto the bed, closing his eyes to the glare that seems to fill the room despite the dim lights. He sleeps fitfully, and dreams of stepping out of the Millennium Falcon. Before him stands his mother, looking older and smaller and sadder than he can remember.

* * *

He wakes up seeing double. Only instead of seeing the same room twice he's seeing two different rooms once. Is he still dreaming? No. It's like his mind has developed a state of duality that gradually corrects itself as he blinks awake.

The Scavenger again. The connection sparks as if she's waking up as well. If she detects Kylo she doesn't show it. Some confusion comes through, as well as irritation, as if she feels him like some fly around her ears, but hasn't yet figured out it's him.

Kylo stiffens where he lies. What does he do? Their last encounter didn't exactly end victoriously on his part. She _denied_ him. To make things worse he now knows the extent of the state she left him in, his saber arm all mangled, and his mind damaged. He is in ruins because of her. If she were to realize he might not actually survive the chagrin.

As her mind clears from sleep, there are other impressions. Fabric against her left cheek, and a crick in her neck like she's been sleeping in an awkward position. Then there's the suggestion of a limp hand in hers. Kylo snags the identity of its owner; it's the traitorous stormtrooper lying lifeless on a medical bed.

The image from her evaporates as someone makes themselves known at Kylo's door. Captain Adilet enters. She greets him casually as if he's just another member of her crew. Just like earlier, spoken words seem to slip through Kylo's mind without making much of a mark. He barely has the sense to acknowledge Adilet's greeting.

What did Anakin do to him?

When the Captain speaks it's more or less about the same things she already told him when they caught him out in the hallway. He's not a prisoner, he's free to leave when they land, however, the doctor has requested that he be allowed to stay until she has made sure he won't fall into some ditch and die of his own injuries. Again Captain Adilet emphasizes that as long as he doesn't cause any trouble, they won't have any quarrels with him. Also, –

Kylo looks between the woman sitting across from him and the door. He can't remember her entering this room. He can't remember sitting down on the bed or the captain taking the chair. How long have they been talking?

"Matt?"

Kylo starts at the tone in her voice, but when he meets her eyes her expression is mild, inquiring.

"How are you doing?"

He tells her he's fine.

He is _fine._

The look she gives him is painfully familiar; there had been times in his childhood when his mother had –

 _That's not important._

The Captain invites him to walk with her. The doctor has cleared him for walking. Well, that's something. She'd like to show him the ship and introduce the crew, which means Kylo has to interact with more people. People who will have unlimited viewing opportunities of his face now that he's without his mask. The idea of more human interaction nothing short of makes him want to willingly volunteer for the airlock, but truth be told dying in zero vacuum is exactly zero amount of fun, and besides, he's about to go stir crazy inside this little cabin.

 _Get a grip you coward._

He can handle this. He can. For fuck sake, Kylo was raised among people, not on some planet devoid of sapient lifeforms and with only the flora for company.

Captain Adilet leads him past doctor Maer's infirmary, and up the set of stairs from last night. They go through a heavy-set durasteel door at the top of it and enter onto a catwalk that runs along the wall of a huge cargo hold. Containers, some big enough to store a rancor, occupy the room in tidy lines. Apart from the general sounds that permeate every part of any ship in motion it's awfully quiet in here. There's no people or other lifeforms that Kylo can detect, apart from a few that sleep in stasis inside their tightly locked cages for the trip.

Captain Adilet and he walk across the catwalk, and enter a second door on the other side. It leads to another set of stairs that end perpendicular into a hallway. To their right the corridor ends in spinning machinery. The room emits a deep thrumming sound, that manifests like a physical sensation in Kylo's chest, the heart of the ship greeting him. He has an instinctual urge to go down that way and get a closer look, cover his hands in grease, to figure out the components, learn how this ship works, but Captain Adilet walks off in the opposite direction.

They enter a mess hall. A long wooden table marks the middle of the room, mismatched chairs all around it. A small gathering of six people stand around a news holo to the side, Nine and doctor Maer among them. A scratching voice comes from the holo, deteriorated by the travel across lightyears.

Kylo falters. The feeling that had hung in the air between Maer and Nine earlier is thick in here, coming off the entire group in suffocating waves. The holo displays a cluster of planets that appears to be the Hosnian system, or what it used to be before it was destroyed.

It's like he's seeing that red beam split into five again, and feeling that earsplitting silence afterwards so strongly there was no way even a non Force sensitive should have been spared it. It should have brought anyone lesser to their knees, but somehow Kylo had been the only one struggling to stand.

And here it is; the aftermath. The open wound in the galaxy that won't let itself be erased for at least another dozen millenniums. Thriving planets that are suddenly gone along with all their life forms, do not just leave more vacuum in the places they used to be.

Leia Organa had spoken once and only once about the destruction of Alderaan in front of him. Just a boy, he'd had to sit in with her as she spoke to the senators. Her white-clad form had been silhouetted in the lights from the hovercam capturing her speech, her shadow falling on her son where he sat silent in his seat in the Senate pod. Han Solo had been too many lightyears away to take Ben off her hands. Her voice had been larger than life throughout the chamber as she argued for steps being taken to secure the galaxy's economical stability after the loss of a core planet such as Alderaan.

To her son, it had all been political drivel, as meaningful as the screeching of a Loth-Cat. But when Leia Organa's artificial halo faded as the hovercam turned to the next pod, her shoulders had sagged, and her head had lowered. Only then had all the things she didn't say become apparent to Ben. Those torn edges that was a constant part of her signature, that she seemed to share with only a select few others Ben had ever encountered. The holos of grandparents he had never met suddenly had a different meaning.

How does one build peace over open wounds?

"Don't tell him that." Nine's voice booms over the news speaker. Captain Adilet is halfway across the room, but Kylo has taken root by the entrance of the mess.

"That guy doesn't give a shit about what's coming," the loadmaster continues.

"You don't know that," a woman sitting on a chair by Doctor Maer's side says. Her belly is swollen beneath her shirt, visibly pregnant.

"Don't I?" Nine retorts. "You think just because he's here he's suddenly cured of all that shit they put us through. I bet you my next ten salaries our friendly Radar Technician down in the crew quarters is freaking out about how he's going to get back to the First Order this very moment, to help them dominate the galaxy. That's what _I_ did. The only reason I even stood a chance is because there is no way back. You've been outside once, you're damaged goods. Nah, Matt wants to destroy us all. Trust me."

Nine's last words drowns in the space Kylo is putting between himself and the mess. They echo in the hallway as he goes.

Hux and his weapons of mass destruction. Hux and his stormtrooper program. Trained from birth? How kriffing wonderful. Hux and his fucking pet projects leading Snoke and the entire First Order astray. From the moment Kylo had laid eyes on the poisonous rat he'd known the man was going to be a fucking menace. Raising soldiers. Brainwashing children. All but convinced the new galaxy could be built on lies. What the First Order needs are people who stand sure in their beliefs, not mindless puppets who can't take a dump without getting a clearance first. Didn't the failure with FN-2187 prove this? A soldier has to be willing, dedicated, or else they defect once they get a taste of freedom.

And the weapons?

Had Kylo been a fool thinking they'd never actually be used? Starkiller Base alone had been a monstrosity so powerful it rendered itself obsolete simply by existing. The simple threat of it would sink their enemies to their knees. Firing it was the mistake that had prompted resistance, the disaster that had ended Starkiller Base. And it was all because of Hux.

The weapons were never meant to be used.

Supreme Leader Snoke had promised.

Without a destination in mind, or a good knowledge of the layout of the ship, Kylo soon finds himself lost. He thought he'd been walking in the direction of the infirmary, but this place is unfamiliar. A door to his right hisses open as he comes to a halt, and a whiff of machinery oil and metal hits his nostrils. The room inside is overflowing with scrap parts and droids in varying states of disrepair. That's an M1A1 model in the corner with its top cap off, along with a WED Treadwell, and – Is that a KX security droid?

Without thinking Kylo steps inside.

Something hits the doorframe with a metallic clang as soon as he's through. A durasteel wrench clatters to the floor by Kylo's feet. He jolts, his one good shoulder drawn up to his ear, and he looks from the wrench to the room around him.

"This a-a-a-ain't n-n-no theater." In the corner a lean fellow sits hunched over at a workbench. In front of him lies what looks like the exploded bowels of some gutted droid. His fingers are blackened by grease, and there's a smear across his jaw where it looks as if he's scratched himself.

"Y-y-y-y,–" The man draws a deep breath. "You stay you m-m-m-make yourself u-useful."

"What?" Kylo says.

"Did I stutter?" the fellow says dryly. He snaps his fingers in the direction of the M1A1 in the corner of his shop. "Now sh-shut up or p-p-piss of." With that he turns his back to Kylo and goes back to his work with an air that says he's not to be trifled with.

Kylo considers the man, the wrench by his feet and the broken astro droid. He thinks of the empty cabin he had half a mind to go back to just a few seconds ago and the air of shock and unhappiness that surrounds the rest of the Halycon's crew. In here all that seems muted. Though this guy gives off the same emotions it's as if it's being overwritten by intense concentration, like some kind of meditation trance covering his surroundings like a blanket. Kylo picks up the wrench.

He gets as far as finding a low stool and sitting down before he remembers he only has one functioning hand. With an internal groan Kylo looks to the ceiling, some immense pang of humiliating defeat running through him. If only the scavenger had killed him cleanly.

A soft mechanical whir draws him out of this momentary deflation. A single robotic arm on wheels rolls up beside him. Its hand, (or head?) consists of an array of tools that it seems to be able to switch between in quick succession. It positions itself at his side as if to mimic his right arm.

Kylo looks over his shoulder. The stuttering fellow still has his back turned on him, working on putting together some small components with a screwdriver. Kylo cocks his head at the robotic arm. It makes a soft sound.

Oh, kriffing hell. It's worth a try.

Kylo has just gotten his fingers tangled with the wires of the broken droid when the door hisses open again and Nine sticks his scowling face through.

"Everything alright in here, Zapf?

"K-k-k-k,–" Deep breath. "Kriffing peachy."

Apparently this is not an uncommon way to reply, cause Nine just nods and turns his frown towards Kylo. "Doc says you ought to rest."

No shit. Kylo doesn't answer. He bites his tongue, wishing nothing more than to Force push the man out of the room. And thank the kriffing stars, Nine seems satisfied enough with his silence.

"Fine. Whatever. Don't say I didn't try." And then the door slides shut behind him.

Kylo frowns. Apparently zero people on this ship think he's anything but harmless now.

At least he's being left alone.

The astro droid turns out to have a few fried circuits that need to be replaced, and a programming that prompts it to insult Kylo's personal hygiene every other minute in binary. After half a dozen of these comments Kylo disables its speech center, but that doesn't stop it from continuing to communicate its displeasure with him in code by blinking its main light. The nastiest insult, however, comes when it tries to electrocute him.

Kylo snaps his hand back, hissing at the sting. He curses from the shock of it and –

– there she is. The scavenger. The bond between them much more of a tangible thing than it had been moments ago, as if she felt him getting shocked. This time her presence brings a notion of awareness; she knows he's there.

He closes his eyes.

When he opens them it's like she's standing besides him. He's still there in the repair shop, the broken droid in front of him, and at the same time Kylo is somewhere else. Shadows are all there is of the room around her, but Kylo can make out the medical bed and the person in it. That's FN-2187, and she's holding his hand. She's looking down at the trooper, her face soft. The Force swirls all around her, light illuminating her skin until it shimmers in this strange mind space and lends itself to the man on the bed.

"You finally noticed I'm here," she says.

It takes a second before Kylo realizes that yes, she is in fact talking to him. Of course she would know about their connection. _Of course_. Why wouldn't she? Little miss I-can-do-mind-tricks-after-no-Force-training-at-all. He shouldn't be surprised.

It grates on him how pointedly she's not asking questions about their connection; like she's already figured out that he understands as little of it as she does.

"What do you want, Ben?"

Kylo looks at her. It's a fleeting thing, but the bond tells him that's the only kriffing name she has for him. Her using it is not out of malice, but ignorance. Of course Kylo Ren has to be a non-entity to her. He never even said his rightful name out loud during their brief encounters. Yes, pull off your mask and show her your face, why don't you, but for the love of all that is kriffing holy do not introduce yourself. What is worse, it seems to have stuck; in her mind he's Ben and no one else, and there's only one person at the moment she could have gotten it from.

That's just Kylo's damn luck.

She squeezes FN's hand, her thumb running along his knuckles. The trooper doesn't look much worse for wear apart from being unconscious. If Kylo's memory serves him right he punched the guy before he made sure he wouldn't stand up again, but the trooper's face carries no trace of it. It occurs to Kylo that in here, where he and the scavenger are meeting, the bandages across his body are gone.

He pulls himself up to his full height.

"Wasting your time I see," he comments. "He fought bravely enough, I guess, but you can't win a battle with heroism alone."

The scavenger's eyes shift from the hand in her own to straight ahead. "Did you come to trade petty insults or talk?"

"I'm saying you'd make more powerful friends somewhere else."

"It's good to know what criteria you use for choosing your relations. I guess I should have known."

"I'm being pragmatic. So should you."

"You offering to teach me again?"

"No." Fuck if he can teach anybody in his current condition. "You're going to have to come crawling. I might consider it then."

She scoffs. "We're going to hold a memorial, for the fallen pilots as well as your father," she says. "You're more than welcome to come along."

Kylo stiffens. In his mind's eye the unwelcome images of a mourning congregation form, faces he hasn't seen in years, the General at the forefront. He bites the inside of his lip until it stings. The hard set in her tone says that catching him off guard was her intention, but there's a part of it that's somehow genuine. Like she's counting on him taking the challenge. Kylo clenches his jaw.

"He can't give you anything of worth," he says, turning the subject matter back to FN-2187. "He's a stormtrooper. They are raised to do one thing, and leading is not it."

Burgeoning impatience flows from the girl, the slight roll of her eyes barely visible from Kylo's angle.

"He is kind to me," she says. "That's enough." Which means Kylo isn't. This doesn't even make sense, he's been plenty kind to her. He _has._

"You're a fool," Kylo tells her. "No one can offer you what I did. No one."

"What about your uncle?"

Kriff. Oh kriff. She knows so much about him already. So this is what it's like to feel not just exposed, but also naked.

"He'll just hold you back," Kylo snaps. "The way of the Jedi can only take you so far. Eventually you'll realize this. And he lies."

"So?" She delivers the one syllable flatly with an undercurrent of spite. While she doesn't deny his words, she doesn't seem to care about them even in the slightest. "I thought you just said you wouldn't teach me. What's it to you?"

"I don't understand you," Kylo argues. "You could have power beyond belief. Planets would bow to you." She has to see the reason in this. It's the only way to put the galaxy back in order.

"And become like you?" For the first time she turns to him, revealing barely contained disgust. There's anger so potent Kylo has to keep himself from taking a step back. She stares him right in the eyes. "How can I? Look at yourself."

She takes a step towards him, the light around her growing as she comes closer, a blinding glare in a darkness, and Kylo finds himself caught in her sharp gaze. She's eye level with his chin and yet it's like she's looking down at him. The girl's mouth twists, and distaste forms on her lips as she delivers the words that cut deepest.

"You know, even after everything you've done, your mother still wants you back."

There's a jolt of the Force, unrefined but strong, and Kylo's yanked back into his own reality. His head bounces back as if he's been physically shoved. The repair shop materializes around him.

There's a whir by Kylo's elbow. The little robot arm spins its screwdriver head up to look at him, like some confused animal questioning why he stopped in the middle of repairs.

A faint ringing in Kylo's ears and a throbbing in his temple signals the beginning of a headache.

He grabs the robot by the neck and wrenches it off its wheels. It falls on its side with a clatter. The damaged M1A1 comes next and it crashes to the ground with the force of his blow.

"Hey!"

It's only by the grace of Kylo's injuries that Zapf isn't pulled into a Force choke right there and then. The stab to his blasted out brain stops him short in drawing on his powers, even before he can raise his arm.

Zapf slams his screwdriver onto the workbench and trots over, his knobbly hands clenched into fists. "S-s-son of a Banta." The man looks from the robotic arm to the upturned droid, his eyebrows raised in outrage. "Who's the degenerate who taught you your m-manners, laserb-b-brain?" He picks up the robot, its little head spinning and whirling, and places it on its wheels again. Then Zaph looks at the droid. "You s-s-sure fixed that o-o-one u-u-up n-nicely," he says, gesturing with an upturned palm and glaring at Kylo.

It's been so long since anyone has reacted with anything but timidity or flat out submission to Kylo's outbursts that his mind draws a blank. Here he stands, strings cut on all sides, a scream trapped in his chest, and this punk, this fucking nobody is staring him down like he's just some difficult child. His throat aches, and there's a terrible thing welling up inside of him, and all he can do is watch as the anger on Zapf's face slowly morphs into something like surprised concern.

Kylo wishes he had his lightsaber, he wishes he had the use of the Force and his arm, but more than anything Kylo wishes he still had his mask.

 _Your mother still wants you back._

 _Come home. We miss you._

Light fucking dammit.

Kylo leaves.

* * *

 ** _To my guest reviewer on chapter two, who I can't reply to for some reason: Thanks for the nice words! Here's hoping someone will show some pity and leave a comment or two on this chapter._**

 ** _I'm planning on updating this story once per week until I'm caught up, but if you don't want to wait that long for the next installment there's already fourteen chapters up on AO3. You can find the story here:_** ** _/works/8597167/chapters/19715788_**

 ** _If you enjoyed this please let me know!_**


	4. Chapter 4

"This is crap."

"No one hits a target on their first try, Ben. The ones who do just get lucky."

"I don't get why I have to do this. I have the Force."

"And what are you going to do when the Force fails you?"

"The Force doesn't fail, Dad. It just there. It's always there. I don't need a blaster."

"You think your uncle fought battles by levitating pebbles at his enemies when I first met him? No, that's right. Luke used blasters like the rest of us lowly mortals. And he didn't stop using them just because he figured out how to do magic. Has he told you yet there are ways to cut you off from the Force?

"No?"

"Well, there are, and there's no way my kid's not going to be able to defend himself if that happens. Now concentrate. I'm trying to teach you something important here. Now, I want you to do everything you just did, only this time use your left hand."

Kylo Ren hasn't had a nightmare in years. His sleep pattern may not be ideal, but it's usually been undisturbed by pesky night visions. Until now. He can't count how many times he startles awake from some black masked menace that won't leave his dreams well alone. When the chrono above the door shows morning Kylo has made up his mind; he's going back to the First Order. He'll take what punishment awaits him, because whatever it will be, it can't be worse than this. The torture will burn the uncertainty clean of his bones. If only just for now.

Anakin remains absent, and Kylo doesn't call for him. The ghost will have other ideas, and he has to be free of any distraction. The Frist Order has the medicine he needs, and Snoke may have mercy on him and cure his severed connection to the Force. He's going back. It's better this way.

Just like the day before, doctor Maer comes to the cabin that's been his for the last two nights. There's no Nine in tow this time around.

"We'll be landing in a few hours," she says, holding the bio-scanner to his head. "Cap said you didn't say whether you'd be staying or not."

Kylo makes a noncommittal sound to the expectant look she gives him. The bio-scanner chirps and she frowns. She snaps it shut and puts it down with more force than necessary.

"Look, Matt. You literally have nothing but the clothes on your back, and they're not even yours. The people on Karideph aren't kind to vagrants. You need medicine and you need rest. At least stay on until the next planet. Gandle is in the middle of spring season in the northern hemisphere, and you'll have better opportunities creating a life there."

Her idealism, while admirable, is a mistake. Compassion only costs in the long run, and Kylo won't hang around to watch her learn it the hard way.

"You've been very generous," he tells her in a flat tone, looking at a spot on the wall above her shoulder.

She sigh, shaking her head, and leaves him.

Within half an hour alone inside the little cabin, Kylo is ready to attempt walking on the bulkhead out of sheer boredom. Staring at walls doesn't do much to prevent him from going stir crazy. His wounds ache, even with the medicine he's taken for the pain, and the slash across his neck and face itches. He's about to jump out of his skin when his eyes fall on the tattered clothes thrown into a corner, that Maer and Nine left behind the day before.

Kylo himself usually kept nothing but his lightsaber on his person, but Matt the radar technician's pockets are filled to the brim. In addition to a standard set of repair tools, Kylo finds what appears to be half a squashed and dried up muffin, (who puts leftovers in their pockets?) a set of worn and dirty glasses, (no one wears those these days) some used paper tissue (disgusting), and a card. Kylo stares at the folded up thing. How does a First Order maintenance guy come by something as rare as writing paper? On the front 'After the rain' is written in thick curvy letters, and when Kylo opens it a rainbow pops up from between the pages. The lines goes on, but he doesn't read what follows. In the top right corner someone has scribbled 'Sorry I killed your son,' a colon and a right bending bracket, then '- Kylo'.

He flushes the crumpled up remains of the card down the toilet.

Meditation doesn't come as easily as it usually does. His concentration wavers and otherwise insignificant things like the hum of the Halcyon or the occasional flicker of the lights keep snapping him out of his trance. Eventually Kylo reaches a semi state of equilibrium with his rattled mind. Focusing on the deepening of his breaths and the slowing of his heart rate, he let's his thoughts drift.

Something writhes in the back of his skull.

Sucking air in through his teeth, Kylo claps his left hand to the nape of his neck. Unnerved, he looks at his palm, expecting to find something smeared across it. Revolt makes a shiver run down his back. The room seems smaller than it did moments ago.

What was that?

He presses his thumb and forefinger to his eyelids, willing the vile image of worms in his brain away, and sees –

– boot clad feet at the edge of a steep fall, the bottom shrouded in shadows. The floor tilts to the side, because that's how the Star Destroyer crashed into the sand. Her heart beats faster at the thought of going down into that darkness, but there's no other way to know for sure. She has to.

Kylo shakes his head. Those memories are not his own, and if they're not his own they can only belong to the scavenger.

Her consciousness unfurls in his mind, like some animal emerging from its resting place. Kylo clenches his jaw. He didn't mean to catch her attention.

"What?" is how she acknowledges him.

"What's down there?" The question comes out of him automatically, fed to her like a stream of consciousness at the will of their bond. At once she snatches the memory out of his grasp, leaving afterimages in its wake. The feeling she gave off in the interrogation room – that he's seen something she didn't want him too – oozes from her.

"You stay out of my head, you hear?" she says as if he was snooping around and not passively witnessing memories that simply slipped through.

"I'm not the one who made this bond you know," Kylo retorts.

"And I did?"

"Yes."

"Bantha fodder. How did I do this?"

There is only one point in time where Kylo can trace the bond back to. Her hungry thoughts clawing into his to protect herself. Undiluted raw power from someone so inexperienced. It wasn't just pure force, it was cunning and wit, a keen mind looking for a way around the problem. She'd been a fox in a trap, he knew that then too, and she'd taken the best and first way out, not knowing or caring about the consequences.

She doesn't appreciate the reminder.

"Then you destroy it," she says, "break it."

The thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth. Broken bonds are not easily suffered, even if one hates the person at the other end. He should know, he suffered three at once. "No dice, sweetheart," he bites out. "I would if I could."

"Liar. I know you've done it before."

Will he have no secrets left from her when this is over? And will none of them remain untwisted by her determination to see him as nothing else but a monster?

"Me?" Kylo spits. "That was done to me, Scavenger."

There's a sting in his cheek, like teeth, an echo of where she's biting her own as she mulls over his words. What he says is clear, he can't lie, but she still has to find ulterior motives.

"You still think I would join the First Order?"

"They would certainly uplift you," Kylo says. But will it do her any good?

He chides himself. There should be no 'but' after that sentence.

But the girl's not listening. Kylo's words leave one ear just as they enter the other. At best what he says is an annoyance to her. "I'll go to the First Order they day you decide to come home, Ben."

He grits his teeth. Schutta. "Fine. You can perish with the rebels. See what I care."

"At least I won't be on the side that commits genocide."

Oh, if he could only strangle her. "Don't put that on me! I had no part in that."

"No? Do you forget your alignments when it's convenient?"

"Just maybe, if you'd've given me that map, that could have been prevented!"

Her ire flares into a full blown fire as Kylo's words come out. He scrambles, aware that he just put the annihilation of thousands of nations on her. A rather unfair accusation even from him. He's not as much pushed out of the conversation as he is torn away from it. Kylo gasps, disoriented, and opens his eyes to the small room in the bowels of the Halcyon.

He kicks over the chair, breaking the bottle of water that has been sitting on top of it and earning himself a stab of blinding pain to the wound in his side for his efforts.

For a wild moment staying seems like a legitimate option. At least until the next planet like doctor Maer suggested. Maybe Zaph would let him into the repair shop again if he made some bogus apology for making a mess of it. To stay on as some nobody, no name, no past. Just a future he can choose of his own volition. Kylo puts his forearm to his mouth and bites down on the flesh until the thought goes away.

Defying destiny is a fool's idea.

The ship shakes in that familiar way that marks its entrance into atmosphere. When the hum of the engines comes to an end Kylo makes his way to the hangar. He's about halfway down the set of stairs in the cargo hall that leads down from the catwalk when he gets cornered by a exasperated doctor Maer carrying a big bundle in her arms.

A truck hoverer speeds in and out of the cargo hold, unloading containers in neat lines. Nine's head is visible from just over the railing of the stairs. His expression looks possibly even more sour than Kylo has ever seen him before. He's joined by two humans, a man and a woman. Across the hall three of the biggest containers are being lined up along the far wall, and Kylo's eyes fall on a dirty yellowish one right in the middle of them all.

"Ok, you know what Matt," Maer says, shoving the bundle she's carrying against his chest. Kylo takes it by reflex, but with only one arm half of it falls out of his grip. A stuffed rucksack thuds to the metal staircase and slumps down a few steps. "I didn't drag you back from the brink of death and fix you up only so you could walk out there and kriffing freeze to death on me." She rips a jacket from what's left in Kylo's hands and holds it open to him. "This part of Karidepht might not be that cold this time of the year, but believe me, the sudden temperature drops can get freakish."

Kylo frowns. Doctor Maer shakes the jacket, her eyebrows raised expectantly. "Put it on, you great lump," she barks, then proceeds to try and thread his left arm through the right sleeve, giving him no choice but to comply.

The yellow crate stands where it's been placed. Nothing conspicuous there.

"Don't tell Cap, but I've packed enough portions to last you a couple of weeks" Maer continues, securing the jacket over Kylo's right shoulder. "Enough to feed even a big guy like you." After tucking the unused sleeve under Kylo's slinged arm, she picks up the rucksack and hands it to him as well. "Jagger, our pilot, is about your size. A little lesser in the buff department maybe, but he's got the height going for him. I bribed him for a set of change. I'll be doing his share of cleaning the 'freshers for the next six months, but hey, what are small favors among friends." She glances up at Kylo. "Or brief acquaintances at least. Anyhow, I wrote down instructions for the daily dosage of pain meds you should be using. It's only enough for a few days, but I'm guessing a smart guy like yourself knows where to get more of it. Don't bother getting the fancy stuff, the regular stuff will work just fine as long as you allow yourself to heal and remember to rest when you need it."

Just as Maer appears to be done talking she raises a finger and closes her eyes briefly as if trying to remember something. "There's a credit chit in the inner pocket. It's not much but it'll last you a few days. Oh, and ask for Khora's inn. Anyone in this city knows where that is. Drop Captain Adilet's name and they might give you a discount."

Kylo blinks down at the rucksack hanging from his hand. She's thought of everything. Enough of the manners he'd been taught as a child has survived the First Order for him to know he should be saying something to the doctor right about now. To offer his gratitude, to tell her he couldn't possibly accept all of this, maybe even complain that he's not some damn charity case. But no sound comes out, except the click as he swallows thickly around his snarled up throat.

He really wishes she wouldn't have.

"Now go," she says, "before I decide that the prison cell was a good idea after all."

The first step he takes away from her is strangely heavy, but the following ones get easier as he makes his way down. As he reaches the deck Kylo glances across the cargo hold. That yellow container hasn't moved. The people Nine were talking to have just made their exit, and now the loadmaster tips his head up to watch Kylo as he leaves. For once the look he gives him isn't sullen, but somehow strange. Then Nine huffs and turns away. Kylo glances over the yellow container one last time, then makes his way to the open cargo doors.

The world outside is muddy, and there's moisture in the air that speaks of previous rain. Beyond the dock the mega-city of Karideph blares, the buildings looming dark and weathered and taller the further away they get. Kylo walks halfway down the ramp and –

Stops.

The Force calls to him.

What now? Why this sudden end to the radio silence?

Beyond the wall of shattered glass that prevents Kylo from actually drawing on the Force, it swirls and beckons, pulling at him in a way it has never done before. Three suns near the horizon as he stands there. The city takes on a intense reddish color right in front of his eyes, but Kylo doesn't see it.

Go back.

He turns. Inside the Halcyon's cargo hold nothing has changed. The neat stacks of new inventory line the deck just as they did only moments ago. Kylo takes an overview of the room, and then does it again. But he already knows….

Over there.

The yellow crate stands as silent as ever between its twins. No, that's not it. It might not be giving off any sounds, but there's something there alright.

The rucksack thumps to the deck, completely forgotten. Kylo makes his way across the hold. He doesn't know what to expect when he presses his palm to the cold and peeling durasteel. A burst of power? A change in the Force? Instead there's just that pull.

What is this?

Kylo closes his eyes, and instead of pulling at the Force he opens himself up to it. Inside the yellow container a bundle of something reveals itself. Pure Force, neither light nor dark, a shapeless mass. It flickers slowly into being, like a child opening its eyes for the first time.

There's been an awakening.

A very small one at that.

"What'cha doing there techie?"

Kylo jolts out of his trance to find Nine staring at him with a mixture of suspicion and bemusement.

"Weren't you about to piss off?" the loadmaster asks.

"I, uh," Kylo starts. There's a lump of the Force in your cargo. Mind opening up this box for me?

Nine scowls, a hint of that now familiar grumpiness coming back into his features. "Come on. You have no business here with the inventory."

"I heard a sound," Kylo says.

"There's nothing but Karidephian whiskey in there," Nine tells him, waving a hand for him to move. "Get out of here." And he steps aside, giving Kylo enough space to pass him.

A thin sound comes from the container.

Kylo would've sworn it was just in his head if it hadn't been for Nine's reaction. The loadmaster frowns at the locked container doors then fixes Kylo with a questioning glare, one eyebrow raised. The sound comes again.

"This what you heard?" Nine points at the crate.

Sure.

"Yes," Kylo replies.

"That's some ears you got there."

Nine glances between Kylo and the lock on the container for a few seconds, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully, the expression on his face far from pleased. After a few seconds of this, he takes a step back to look over his shoulder towards the loading doors. He eyes Kylo again. He looks back over to the door. He looks at the crate. He looks at Kylo. An impatient twitch has developed in the way Nine moves.

The sound comes again. This time it's louder.

"I knew there was a reason I didn't like their ugly mugs," Nine growls. "Traders are never that friendly unless they want something."

Will wonders never cease? As fate would have it, Kylo's luck turns because Nine found someone he dislikes even more.

He leaves Kylo by the crate, and makes his way towards the back of the cargo hold. Over by the stairs doctor Maer follows Nine's movements along with Kylo as he rummages through the inventory back there. He comes back with a pair of cutters.

"Hey Nine, what's going on?" Maer asks as she trots over.

"You better comm Jagger, Mana," Nine tells her, "I don't think there's anything good inside this thing."

"As opposed to everything else we bring aboard?" she asks, her face serious. "You better be sure about this. Are you sure about this?"

"Nope."

"Nine."

"I just... I got a bad feeling about this ok. Will you just comm him?"

Inside the container that ball of Force moves again. Kylo bites his lip. Yes, Maer. Would you just comm him?

Maer and Nine shares a look, as though some unspoken communication is going on between them. Then Maer sighs and pulls a comm unit out from the inside of her west. Nine turns towards the crate and lifts the cutters to the lock. Within seconds it comes loose with a sound of finality. Kylo steps aside as Nine pulls at the doors. They open with a shrill whine.

Silence falls. Kylo blinks, trying to rectify what he sees inside the dark space. At his side, Maer stands frozen with with the comm unit held to her mouth. Nine lets out a breath he must have been holding.

Inside the yellow container, strapped to padded racks, lined up as neatly as the cargo hall outside, are rows and rows of sleeping children.

 ** _I'm planning on updating this story once per week until I'm all caught up, but if you don't want to wait that long for the next installment there's already fourteen chapters up on AO3. You can find the entire story so far here: /works/8597167/chapters/19715788_**

 ** _If you enjoyed this please let me know!_**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry to those who have been waiting for this chapter! I completely forgot to upload it yesterday.**

"Mother's milk in a cup," Maer whispers. She places her hand on the shoulder of a ashen faced Nine. He has gone slack mouthed, looking as if he's about to vomit. Kylo grips the door on his end, still blinking at the scene in front of them.

The children, there must be at least thirty of them in all, are stacked on top of each other in racks like bunkbeds, each of their little noses almost brushing the bunk above them. Narrow spaces wide enough for an adult person to walk run between the rows. The kid closest to Kylo, a pale blond boy, looks barely six or five.

Maer and Nine jump as a shrill cry comes from inside the container. Kylo stiffens.

 _There._

Three stacks in, right in the middle, a girl struggles against the restraints around her little wrists and feet, twisting her head against the band holding it in place. Frantic energy rolls off her in torrents through the Force. Uncontrolled, scared, _dangerous._ Kylo makes to take a step inside.

A blaster bolt ricochets off the container right above his head. Kylo, Maer and Nine scatter like a flock of birds.

"Kriff!" Nine exclaims, taking cover behind another container. "Should've thought of that."

"Jagger," Maer yells into her comm unit. She pushes the door to the container shut again. "We need lift off ASAP. Deliverers are hostile! I repeat, deliverers are hostile."

"What?" comes the crackling reply from the other end. "Again?"

Kylo casts a glance around the corner of the box he and Maer has taken cover behind. He counts four people, the two whom Nine had been talking to earlier, and another two, all holding blasters at the ready. He jerks back as a bolt distorts the air around his ear. Reaching for his lightsaber ends with just the thought, he has no functioning saber hand and no lightsaber to speak of. At least he doesn't automatically reach for the Force, having learned not to the hard way.

" _Jagger!_ " Maer shouts again.

"All right, all right! I'm going! Just hang on for a sec. I'm in the mess."

"And close the door for us. We're sort of in a pickle here."

In one fluid motion Maer closes her unit and draws out two blasters, one of which she thrusts towards Kylo. Just like the bundle she handed him earlier, he takes it automatically.

"You're giving the radar technician a weapon?" Nine says, who has produced a blaster of his own somehow. From where, Kylo has no idea. "For kriff sake Mana!"

"Maybe we found the one trooper who can hit a target," she deadpans, "you never know."

Kylo fumbles with the damned thing. He hasn't held a blaster in years. It's not like the one he used to practice with when he was younger, but smaller and lighter. For someone else's hand.

The Force signature of the little girl inside the container grows panicked, making the hairs on Kylo's arms stand up. Getting as good grip on the blaster as he can, he swings his hand out of cover. He pulls the trigger.

Nothing happens.

 _Kriff._

He left the safety on.

Out of all the moments to choose from, it just happens to be this one the scavenger decides to pipe up.

"Listen," she says in Kylo's head, sounding determined, "If this is going to be a... permanent thing we're going to have to make ground rules."

"What?" Kylo says. By his side Maer gives him a strange glance before she turns her attention back to the enemy.

 _What?_ he repeats inwardly.

"I'm sure you can agree that we both need privacy," the scavenger says.

 _You want to do this now?_

"One down!" Maer calls out as she gets behind cover again, red beams streaking past right above her head, whipping strands of her hair up as they go by. She is utterly unperturbed.

"No," the scavenger says, "I wanna do this when the stars aligns. Yes _now_!"

"Any time now, Radar," Nine growls, dodging a bolt.

"Are you listening?" the girl asks.

 _Yes! Yes, fine! Ground rules. Sure!_ Kylo frantically retorts. This blasted safety switch is in the wrong place! His hand is shaking.

"Uh, Mana," Nine shouts over to where Maer has climbed on top of another box to get a better shot. "I don't think he's a leftie."

"I am right here, dammit," Kylo snaps at him. Blast that man. He's _not_ helping.

"Could've fooled me."

"Knock it off you two!" Maer hollers over the cacophony of the firefight. Nine fixes her with a glare as if to say Kylo started it.

"What's going on?" the scavenger asks. "Are you in a fight?"

Kylo curses as he wrestles with the blaster. Did someone glue the safety switch?

 _Not kriffing now,_ he tells her.

"Where are you?"

 _I said not now, Rey!_

"So you _do_ know my name. Who would have thought."

In the midst of all the action, the sound of machinery starts up. The ship comes alive around them. The deep whine of hydraulic doors thrums throughout the cargo hold. Immediately, as if in reaction to the noise, that little bundle of Force that is the awake child grows even more panicked. The _strength_ of her. An outburst could cause irreparable damage. She's terrified, dazed and only just awoken. A possibly catastrophic mix.

And she's alone. That is unacceptable.

 _I know kiddo,_ Kylo thinks. _I can hear you. I know._

"Excuse me?" Rey says.

"Ha! Three down," Maer shouts. "I think..."

Finally, the safety clicks off, but the next second a red beam cuts through Kylo's jacket sleeve, burning a hole just above his elbow. He jerks and the damned blaster slips in his sweaty palm. "Fuck!"

 _Grandfather, help me!_ He throws his plea out into the ether, but damnit if the dead bastard doesn't think this is the perfect moment to return.

"You know what," Rey says, sounding odd. She heard that didn't she? Of course she did. Why wouldn't she? "This can wait after all. I need to go." And she leaves, her consciousness fading until it's just that little remainder of their bond left.

One distraction less to think about at least.

Kylo holds the blaster up in front of himself. He's ready. The safety's off. He's doing this. He's about to –

But he doesn't get to do anything before Nine swings around the corner of his cover. His would-be assailant goes down shrieking, blood spraying from where he whipped the butt of his blaster across her face.

"Four," Nine says, standing above the sprawling woman, aiming his blaster at her head.

Kylo kicks the weapon she dropped away from her reaching hand, earning himself a frosty glare from over the palm she holds to her nose. She spits at his feet, and shouts things in a language he doesn't know.

"Nice," Maer says coming up besides Kylo. She tugs at the hole in his sleeve. "They only got the fabric," She slaps Kylo on the back. "What would a mere flesh wound be to you anyway, eh? Nine, you alright?"

"Bastards got me in the shins," Nine complains. "Just a nick, but dammit."

Their attention turns to the woman shouting insult after insult from her place on the floor. Kylo turns to the crate with the children, his focus specifically on the girl with the Force. She's stopped crying. It's rare to find a Force user so young this day and age. If the records of the Empire archives that remains in the hands of the First Order are anything to go by then the Jedi used to gather them up in spades back in the old Republic, usually when they were barely out of their diapers. Impressionable children are easily malleable.

The blaster is still in his hand and the ship hasn't lifted off just yet. Maer and Nine are too busy trying to get the woman to shut up to pay attention to Kylo. He can still get off with the kid in tow.

 _(Remember son, we practice for sport, so that when we find ourselves in a pickle, we can rely on our reflexes to get us out of it.)_

Kylo shakes his head. And what's he going to do after he gets off? Give her to Snoke? It would certainly be an apt apology.

Although...

There's a sudden change in the girl, jolting him out of his thoughts. Kylo doesn't as much see the person sneaking up the steps leading up to the catwalk as he's sensing their presence, creeping up there to get a good shot at the people distracted by a screaming woman on the floor.

 _(Take a deep breath and let it out slowly as you aim, Ben.)_

His left hand snaps up, angling towards a point just above Nine's tuft of hair, blaster at the ready.

 _(Keep both eyes open, son.)_

The sound of the shot cracks throughout the cargo hold. Both doctor Maer and Nine jump, their eyes on Kylo as if expecting the blaster will point towards them next. Up on the stairwell, the very last goon collapses like a rag-doll, tumbling down the steps all the way to the deck below.

* * *

"Wanna tell me what the kriffing hell is going on here?" Captain Adilet says, addressing the woman with a broken nose. Blood now drips from between her fingers where she's holding them across her face. Her one remaining companion, the guy Kylo shot just minutes ago, sits propped up besides her against one of the containers, moaning and clutching his shoulder.

Captain Adilet, flanked by two additional crew members – a man and a woman Kylo recognizes from the mess last night – had come into the cargo hall guns blazing after the actual fight had died down for real. The extra manpower now hovers over the would-be assailants, holding them at blaster point. Both of them look utterly disappointed that they didn't get to join in on the shooting.

Kylo stands off to the side, looking pointedly at everything other than the little girl standing between him and the doctor. She in turn stares at him with her big brown eyes as if his face is the strangest thing she's ever seen. The rest of the children have been left inside the container, all of them hooked up to tranquilizers that would've made them sleep until the Halycon reaches its next destination. They would have been unloaded there, and no one would have been wiser. Maer had decided that it is safer to let them sleep until she knows what's been injected into their bloodstream.

Nine has taken up position furthest from the rest of them. He keeps running a hand across his ashen face. He, like Kylo is avoiding looking at the tiny human in their midst.

The girl hasn't said a single word since they brought her out. What looks like sleek black hair have been sheared half an inch from her scalp. The rags for clothes she wears hang off her too thin frame and her tawny skin has a sickly tinge to it. She sparkles brightly in the Force, however, which swirls all around her like ink in water. There's definitely potential in her. She's going to need guidance. The _right_ kind of guidance.

 _Are you really going to do this?_

"Baltar will know you broke the code," the woman with the bleeding nose says to Captain Adilet in broken standard. "He'll know and then you and your crew will be out of the Guild for ever."

"The last time I checked trafficking of sapient lifeforms was an ever worse violation of the code," Adilet informs her. She pulls out a comm unit of her own. "One of the worst in fact. Now I've got my pilot upstairs already in contact with the Guild, and he's transmitting this conversation as we speak. They already know what's in your cargo. Isn't that right Jagger?"

"Aye Capt'n" comes the reply form the comm unit. "All sets of fingers and toes are numbered and accounted for. They've got representatives on their way as we speak."

"I don't believe the guild is going to mind that we opened some of your shipments. My question is what do you think they'll say when we open the rest of it?" Adilet tells the woman on the floor. Despite the way she shrinks under Captain Adilet's stare, the look she returns remains poisonous. Her more gravely injured companion just screws up his face in pain, sweat forming on his face and his breath growing labored.

"Now what in the galaxy's name do you think you're doing shipping children off like cattle?" Adilet presses.

"They were sending them to the First Order." Everyone turns towards Nine as he comes walking up to them. He passes the Captain and points an accusing finger at the two on the floor. "This is how Stormtroopers are recruited isn't it? You pick some kids off the streets, the kind that look as if no one will miss them and you ship them off for easy money don't you?"

"Nine?" Maer takes a step towards him, leaving the little girl alone with Kylo.

"I know what it sounds like," Nine stops Maer before she can say anything else. "But I'm telling you, I... I just have a feeling about this." The look on his face isn't anger, though anger is part of it. It's nothing Kylo has ever seen before, though he might have felt it in another person, in another time, another planet. Lowering his gaze isn't really a natural thing if it's not in front of The Supreme Leader, but the floor is the only comfortable place to put it at the moment. Children to fatten the ranks of Hux's army. Trained from birth, huh, General? In his peripheral vision the little girl inches closer, like Kylo's the safest thing to hide behind despite the strangeness of his face.

He should take her and leave right now.

 _Beat it, kid._

"Is this true?" Adilet asks. "You're providing the First Order with children for battle fodder?"

The woman with the bleeding nose spits. Flecks of blood spatter on Adilet's shirt. "You can't stop them," the she sneers. "You can kill us, but one day you'll bow like the rest of the galaxy. There's been no power as great as the First Order since the days of the Empire. You've seen what they can do. No one can stop them. When they rise your kind will be among the first to get culled."

Nine makes a jerky motion towards her as if to strike, but Captain Adilet is there first. She smacks the woman across the face with the back of her hand. The woman topples over from the force of it. The guy with the shoulder wound, who has been leaning on her, almost follows. He straightens himself with a look of confusion, as if what is going on around him has completely passed him by. Adilet smacks him too.

By now the little girl has crept all the way behind Kylo. She peeks out around the area of his thigh, her eyes round as marbles and her mouth open wide. Jittery turmoil swirls all around her. Kylo's hand tightens on the blaster.

He really should get out of here.

Adilet straightens up again, wiping blood off her hand onto her pant leg. Her face is as flat as a mask, but there's something in her eyes.

"Who discovered the children?" she asks the room at large.

Maer nods towards Kylo. "Matt did, Cap. He said he heard this one crying."

Adilet turns to him, her eyebrows raised as if surprised at discovering he's still here. Kylo has never met this woman before he woke up on the Halycon, he is sure of that, but there's something about her. Some indescribable familiarity that's like an itch he can't reach. Adilet considers him for a few moments, as if possessing new information, then nods.

"Ress, Tull," she addresses the pair that had followed her into the cargo hall, their blasters still trained at the man and woman on the floor, "don't let these two out of your sight until the Guild gets here. Doc, take care of this man's wound. I don't need another fanatic dead on my ship. Then make sure the children in the container are alright. Nine, will you take this girl up to Pia? Get her something warm to eat. Matt, you're coming with me."

Kylo looks up at Adilet and then without really thinking about it down at the little girl. The girl in turn looks between him and Nine who is now coming over, is now sitting down on his haunches, is now reaching a hand out to her, is now telling her she's safe, no one will hurt her here. Her eyes meets Kylo's as if seeking confirmation.

 _Don't look at_ me, Kylo almost says to her.

He should be long gone by now. She's right there. _Just grab her and go._

"Matt," Maer says. "My blaster."

His left hand comes up, lifting the thing toward her with the butt first, the barrel pointing back at Kylo. What is he doing? _What_ is he _doing?_

 _(Never point the weapon at the person you're handing it to. That's just common courtesy, Ben)_

Maer picks the blaster out of his hand and turns it over in her own as she looks it over. "Huh," she says. "You unstuck the safety."

"With me," Adilet practically orders him, and she turns and marches towards the stairway as if unquestionably expecting him to follow. Kylo doesn't look down again, but he can feel that little bundle of Force that is the girl change, her energy turning into a forlorn sort of disappointment, the strands that have somehow latched onto him picking themselves loose one by one.

 _I'm not your... kriffing anything,_ Kylo thinks.

And so he follows Captain Adilet back up the stairs again and out of the cargo hall, leaving the girl behind with the rest of the crew where she'll be completely safe.

* * *

The office looks like a part of Adilet's private cabin. She disappears through a door to their left when they enter and comes back with a bottle of amber liquor and two cups which she sets down on her uncluttered desk. Apart from fairly detailed holo maps of various hyperlanes across the galaxy the walls are empty. All her most personal things must be beyond the door. She sits down behind the desk and motioning for Kylo to do the same.

"Did Doc say anything about you not drinking alcohol?" she asks, pouring a finger of the liquid in both cups. "Nevermind. Have some." She pushes one towards Kylo. The knuckles of her hand are bloodied.

The mere fumes from the cup's contents stings his eyes when he lifts it to his mouth, and it burns on his tongue. Kylo's no lightweight, far from it, but right now everything is just _so much._ Pressure is building at his temple, and the mere smell of the whiskey makes him unsteady. He might have jostled his wounds earlier; they ache like mad. The light flares in his eyes. he colours all just seem so bright it makes him nauseous. Kylo winces as he puts the cup down, his hand unsteady.

 _(Keep both eyes open, son.)_

He shakes his head. It's like something has snapped inside him, like it did when Anakin had broken whatever that thing was in his mind, but instead of bursting into uncontrollable laughter he would gladly lie down and sleep for days. Lightheadedness makes him sway, and he's grateful he's sitting down.

Han Solo just saved his life.

He was kriffing helpless and his dad's teachings just saved his life.

Adilet drains her own cup and leans back in her chair. For a while she doesn't say anything, just regards one of the holo maps on her wall with far away eyes as she turns her cup around on the table with her fingertips.

"They took my baby," she says in the end. Something inside Kylo makes a tiny leap. He wasn't expecting that. "They took him and then they took my husband's life when he tried to get him back. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd have another family, but it happened despite everything. My second one is twelve, at home and safe, happy as any boy can be, but..." Her gaze turns to Kylo. "Sam was suppose to be his big brother."

He turns his own eyes to the cup in front of him, shrinking into his chair. The image of a little boy with Adilet's hair and her nose strapped to one of those racks comes unbidden.

Adilet shakes herself as if realizing who she's talking to. She straightens up, becoming the more matter of fact woman who he met just two days ago.

"Zapf told me you did a decent job on that droid before you decided trashing it was a better idea."

Kylo takes the cup and sips from it again, for the mere excuse of having something to do with his hand. So he had an outburst.

"It's my opinion that Doc has been a softie on you," Adilet continues. "That's just her. She finds strays and reels them inn. That's how we got stuck with Nine. She wouldn't take the job unless I hired him too. Luckily for us he runs the cargo hold smoother than anyone I've known. Never saw a deck that organized before, or that clean. That part of this ship belongs to him now."

She leans towards Kylo, her elbows on the desk and clasping her hands in front of herself. "Doc's been lobbying hard on your behalf. I was ready to let someone else take you off our hands. You're shifty, Matt, and you have the look of a runner. I've met plenty of that kind. They're never good news." She pauses for a second, then goes on. "Now, I'm not known to be a spontaneous person, but what you did down there, finding those children, keeping my crew safe, taking that shot? That's worth something."

Adilet picks up the bottle of liquor and fills up his cup even though he's barely touched it.

"You have a job here on the Halcyon, if you want it."

Kylo blinks. Did she actually just say that or is his condition is making him hear things? There's this thing in his chest and he can't figure out whether it's good or bad.

Adilet holds up a hand, her face conceding. "Let's call it a trial run for now. Pay's no good and the food's worse. Nine will probably never let me hear the end of it, but the Maker knows we could do with some more of his complaining. But it'll be a start."

He shouldn't say yes, he shouldn't be saying yes at all, but he can't make his mouth form the word 'no'.

"I suggest you think about it while you recover. We'll be here until tomorrow and then on Gandle in two day cycles. You'll have another chance to get off when we get there. What do you say Matt? Will you think about it?"

It's the strangest thing how the the whole concept of staying seems not – terrible? Before he knows it Kylo hears himself say the words: "I'll think about it."

Adilet nods. "Good." She drains her cup. "You look like you need to lie down. Why don't you go get some rest? I need to get down there and meet the people from the Guild."

"The girl," Kylo starts, stopping her in her tracks. Adilet's attention is on him and he has no plans for what he's about to say.

That kid will need training.

 _And?_

A competent teacher.

 _Yes, and?_

A safe environment to come into her own power.

 _And she'll get that where?_

Kylo looks down to the arm that rests in its sling to his chest. The ache in his shoulder has grown into a distracting throbbing. He can barely stand to brush again the barrier that keeps him from drawing on the Force. The girl is still on the ship, her presence burning brightly in the back of his mind. It's with some sense of defeat he admits to himself he's in no place to offer any of the conditions a child in training needs. He's never seen someone so young apprenticing for the Knights of Ren. That part is always left to some poor fucker who will eventually lose the kid when it reached a certain age or level of skill. The First Order was never a place for children.

"What about the girl?" Adilet presses.

Kylo rubs his forehead. _Yes, what about the girl?_

"Send her to Takodana" he says eventually, and a chill runs through his body as he speaks the words. This is disobedience. But then again, what's one more discrepancy after everything he's done against Snoke's wishes.

"And what's on Takodana?" Adilet asks.

"There's a woman named Maz –"

"Kanata?" Adilet leans back in her chair, folding her arms in front. Her gaze is more than interested. It's intrigued. "How does someone like you know about Maz Kanata?"

 _("Who doesn't know about Maz Kanata?" His dad's voice had been loud and careless, spoken as he balanced precariously on the back feet of his chair.)_

"Who doesn't know about her?" Kylo offers. Adilet gives him one of her all-knowing stares. There are probably few things that get past this woman. The collar of his shirt feels a little tight all of a sudden.

"You think there's something more to the child," she states instead of asks. "I admit, the circumstances surrounding her discovery are strange. She was hooked up to the tranquilizers just like the rest of them. There's no reason she should be awake. I heard somewhere that someone who has the Force can rid themselves of poison. I suppose the same is true for everything that can end up in a person's bloodstream."

Kylo nods along to her explanation. It's not a lie. She isn't _wrong,_ she's just not entirely right.

Adilet purses her mouth thoughtfully. "You understand that we can't take a child away from her homeworld just like that? Even if she doesn't have family."

She holds up her hand as he opens his mouth. "We do not ship unwilling sapient lifeforms on this freighter. I can make a pretty good guess how things were done where you came from, but that's not how we do things here. We can not take children away from the only life they know just because we think it's a good idea."

She's right. Damnit, but she is. He doesn't want to admit it, but he has to. There's a clarity to his thoughts, the same clarity he'd had when lying in the snowdrift and the scavenger – _Rey_ – had left him behind broken and beaten. Memories come so easily to him. A pang of old, but well-nursed grudge hits like a punch to the gut; the betrayal of being sent away as a boy, away from the only life he'd even known.

"I tell you what," Adilet continues. "There are a few strings I can pull. There are people who can help with this sort of thing, and they can bring her where she needs to go, but I won't make any promises. The child will have the final say in this, and if she doesn't want to go she's not going."

It's out of his hands anyway, Kylo concedes to himself. He gave away the blaster, he didn't walk away when he had the chance to, and now he's as good as accepted to stay on as a crew member on some obscure ship no one's ever heard of when he should be more concerned about fulfilling his destiny. Nothing makes sense anymore. _Shit,_ he's so _tired._ He drags his hand across his forehead in sheer bewilderment and exhaustion, and winces when the movement pulls at the bowcaster wound.

Adilet stands up to go, but stops. "One more thing," she says with a sudden mildness in her voice. "Things are going to be different from now on, no matter what you choose. There's no going back, I think you already know this. But I want you to also know that no one here will blame you for mourning a life that is over."

Flecks of light swirl in his whiskey, the content of his cup not quite settled. If he could somehow drown himself in it... Kylo reaches for the cup.

 _(Will you help me?_

 _Yes, anything.)_

A sob burst from his throat. He covers his eyes with his palm, his face underneath screwing up without his permission. It's like battling a sickness with mere willpower alone, useless, and he doesn't seem to have the strength to do it anymore. It's fighting so hard to come out he's shaking from it.

On the other side of her desk Adilet stands in silence, somehow communicating a solemn understanding with her lack of words. Kylo would have expected derision and he wants to hate her for it, but there's just an unbearable relief. Relief that she's allowing this to happen, seems to expect it, even welcomes it.

 _(You know it's true.)_

What does he have left to lose? What has fighting it ever given him? _Nothing,_ that's what. He's just so sick of holding this thing in his chest down – this thing that has been amplified by the new bond latched deep inside him and somehow cut free by Anakin. So as the last bricks fall, it's not just because he's no longer holding it at bay. No, Kylo Ren is crushing the stone and mortar underfoot, grinding it into pulp and dust as he breaks down into sobs in front of Captain Adilet, because fuck it.

 _Fuck it._

It's like Anakin said, nothing ever kriffing goes as Kylo thinks they will. What good was he thinking going back to the First Order would do? He was done with it. Why would he want to go back after what it has led him to?

He nearly fucked everything up again.

Whoever told him as a boy that tears have healing power have better been right, because at this moment he can't see any other way to make this thing in his chest go away. His last resort is this; pathetic, disgusting, only for the weak willed, and he's grabbing it with both hands and holding on for dear life. Because despite everything he's worked towards for the last seven years, despite everything Supreme Leader Snoke has taught him about sacrifice and destiny, Ben Organa-Solo is grieving his father's life.

And it's a mess. His family never did anything but prove themselves to be nothing but liars, murderers and thieves. Unworthy of the trust and childish unyielding devotion he once had for them. And yet.

Yet, when Han asked him to come home, his first thought had been yes.

And what did he do? What did he _do?_ There's still a warm spot on his cheek after his father's hand. His dad. Oh Maker, his _own dad._

There she is again. For the third time that day Kylo finds himself in the focus of Rey's attention. Her thoughts are guarded as if this is some kind of ploy. For once it's _he_ who cuts _her_ off, pushes her out and mutes the bond between them til there's nothing left but a whisper, a trick he can only have learned from her. She's seen so much of him already, he won't let her pry this from him too. If it's privacy she wants, privacy is what she'll get.

It all comes back to her in the end. The Force must have possessed Kylo when he chose to forget about the droid for the secondhand information in Rey's mind. Her presence has littered Kylo's path like tripwires before he even set eyes on her. She's linked to everything; the droid, that rogue trooper, even his own father's reappearance in Kylo's life.

Kylo was raised to serve the light. He could never forget old lessons in morality just because he no longer agreed with them or found them inefficient and foolish. It's because of said lessons he knows why she walked away in the end, even though he can't – _couldn't?_ – agree with it. There was never a chance in hell she would ever follow Kylo Ren no matter how much he had to offer, not after witnessing what he did. No, if the Force didn't put her in his path to join his cause then she was put there to stop him. He just didn't realize until now.

At some point Adilet comm unit beeps. Kylo barely registers it as she leaves, but as the door slides shut behind her – a lingering imprint of a hand left on his shoulder – he looks up to discover that the cup of whiskey has been replaced with a mug of something dark and steaming. The ceramic warms his hand as he picks it up and the smell wafts under his nose as he brings it close. A bark of a laugh escapes him.

How long since he had something like this, or even the synthesized version of it? Kriff, he'd been a teenager the last time. Adilet would probably never have left it had she known his full story, but he's going to accept it, because _screw it._ Screw Hux and his megalomaniac excuse for a personality, screw the First Order and screw the old Empire. They're long dead anyway. Kylo is going to drink this goddamn cup no matter what because he kriffing well chooses too. It tastes fucking delicious.

It happens as he's halfway to the bottom of the mug. There's that sense of a veil brushed aside that again, like a hand ghosting over the hairs on his neck.

If it isn't just his luck that this is how Anakin finds him when he finally returns; Kylo Ren, former Master of the Knights of Ren blubbering his misery into a cup of Hoth chocolate.

"There's a blaster hole in your sleeve," Anakin blurts out, completely sidestepping Kylo's evident swollen and wet eyes. Thank the Maker for little things.

Kylo snivels. "Was in a shooting."

"You were _what?_ "

"There were kids in a container."

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, I'm telling you there was this –"

"I can't believe this!" Anakin throws his nonexistent hands in the air. "I leave you alone for an hour and you go and almost get yourself killed. _Again!_ How am I going to explain to your grandmother that I almost lost our only grandson?"

Why gosh. Thanks for the concern, Grandpa. "A day," Kylo corrects him, putting the cup down so he can wipe his face.

"Excuse me?"

"You were gone for a day, not an hour."

There's a palpable sense of the ghost deflating. "Oh," he says. "Well…. Time's different when you're dead."

A moment passes. Then Anakin speaks, his tone much calmer than it was seconds ago. "Are you alright?"

Kylo bites his cheek. The sting is nothing against the pain from the rest of his wounds, but he needs something to prepare himself for what he's about to confess too. He screws his eyes shut. "I can't do this anymore."

Anakin goes still, his signature balancing right in the middle of relief and apprehension.

"What are you saying?"

"I don't know what to do."

Why does he have the feeling of sitting in front of a kneeling giant? Like the feeling when he was a child and someone would crouch down to his height. Anakin can see everything that has transpired over the course of the day he's been gone – Kylo's ill-conceived decision, his recent change of heart – and he emits a sense of recognition.

"Well then," Anakin says. "That is more than I could have hoped for."

"This is it then?" Kylo covers his face with his palm and breathes out. "I turn myself into the Resistance now?"

Anakin makes a noncommittal sound. "If that's what you want."

Kylo lifts his face from his hand, looking at the empty room at large. "It's what you asked for, isn't it?"

"Yes," Anakin replies and is that a hint of _abashedness_ in his tone? "About that. Forget it. You don't need to follow my wishes."

Kylo lets his hand fall to his lap.

"Earlier," Anakin continues, "I think I needed some perspective. I've been… pushing you to further my own agenda. That was... wrong of me."

There's been a lot of things Anakin has done that goes against all of the expectations Kylo had of his grandfather, but if there's one thing he never thought he would hear from him it's something that sounds a lot like an apology.

"I've forgotten what it was like," Anakin says. "There's been people with their hand on my noose too, controlling my every move. and I've done the same to others in turn. It never led to anything good. I've decided I'm not going to be just another overlord holding your leash."

Kylo's gaze drops. After the events of the day – the firefight and falling to pieces in front of Captain Adilet – he's now filled with something beyond exhaustion, a bone deep hollowness that may never be gone. "What about the light?"

"Forget about it."

Kylo lifts his head. "Forget?" he repeats in disbelief.

"And the darkness. Forget about that too."

"And do what?"

"Take up crochêt?" Anakin replies. "What do kids do these days anyway? I don't know. Choose your own way."

Choose his own way? It's such an unfamiliar notion to him it's laughable. There's hardly been a time in his life when he wasn't bound by duty. There's always been someone pulling at his strings, driving him this way or that.

Except for now.

Captain Adilet has made him an offer. An _offer_ and not a demand. A job that he can do fairly well and that doesn't require regular interactions with a certain constipated redheaded General. He could be a nobody, someone who doesn't have their life planned out before them by some holy prophecy.

But Kylo balks. If there's something that's doesn't tempt him it's the thought of passing into a life of obscurity. It's not enough.

Anakin turns to him, as if he's figured that even if he's decided he's not going to demand anything it doesn't mean he can't make suggestions. "There is one thing."

"What?"

Anakin nudges Kylo's memory back in time, to the last moments before he lost consciousness on the shuttle.

"I don't know what you mean," Kylo says, feigning ignorance and failing hard.

"No? I saw your mind when you thought you were dying."

"That was madness."

"Yes!" Anakin's newfound gusto comes dangerously close to infecting Kylo. "Yes it was, and it was beautiful."

Kylo lets out a huff. It's a terrible idea based solely on the fact that it's impossible. He's just one guy. One now _ordinary_ guy, and he has nothing to show for it. However, if there's one thing that catches Kylo's interest then it's a chance to even the scales and remove General Hux from his position of power. The fact that it's also a chance to rub it in real nicely to that power-hungry sycophant is just the cherry on top.

What does he have to lose?

Kylo catches himself, shaken by the thoughts he's having. What he's thinking is worse than leaving the First Order, worse than leaving his position with the Knights of Ren and his place at Snoke's side. It's more treacherous than treason.

It's rebellion.


	6. Chapter 6

**First of all, thank you guest comenter Starnut for bringing the issue with chapter four to my attention! I don't understand how that happened, but now it's fixed.**

 **And now on to the next chapter, in which Kylo makes some changes to his life.**

* * *

The thing about preventing the completion of a superweapon that has the power to turn multiple planets into dust in one go, is one has to know where to find the construction site first.

For a person with not a lick of Force sensitivity Hux, the conniving bastard, had a keen ability to keep his thoughts locked down tight around Kylo. Nevertheless even he slipped up sometimes, but it only took the one. It had happened on one of those rare good days in the First Order. Kylo had just had the pleasure of witnessing him squirm under Snoke's chastising over some oversight concerning an incident at one of the trooper farms. Afterwards, they'd crossed paths on the bridge of the Finalizer, Kylo taking up as much space as possible in the hopes that the git would fall into one of the sunken control stations in one of his desperate attempts to avoid him. One well placed shoulder check and Kylo'd been on the receiving end of not only Hux's many sullen glares but also a momentarily poorly hidden thought. Just for a second. A vindictive _I know something you don't_ , followed by petty satisfaction.

Except that now Kylo did know, he's seen it as clear as day as if the General had purposefully projected it onto him; Starkiller's twin being built at this very moment. How unoriginal. If someone had to repeat the Empires fiascos, of course it had to be Hux. Who else? But Kylo's day had been thoroughly ruined, so naturally later on, he'd stuffed Millicent the cat into the nearest trash compactor.

At the time he'd thought of it as just another one of the things someone like Hux would do, but as of right now the knowledge of Starkiller II's existence is the best thing he has. But even if Hux subconsciously divulged the existence of a weapon, the asshole of course just happened to leave out its location. And that's just where the problems start. Finding the damned weapon is one thing, sabotaging it is a whole nother set of obstacles. One has to have resources, things like battleships, people and credits to pay for it. None of which are easy to come by if you're Matt the one armed and Force-less radar technician.

And he _is_ Matt the radar technician now, whether he likes it or not.

It's not the first time a name has left a sour taste in his mouth. 'Ben Organa-Solo' had felt like poison long before he joined the First Order. Shedding it, however, didn't leave a bounty on his head. He'd vowed to only leave their ranks in death. To do otherwise would leave him a hunted man. If any of the Knights of Ren believes he didn't die on Starkiller, he soon will be dead anyway. Well, it's too bad, because Kylo Ren is currently indisposed on account of being the biggest fuckup who ever graced the galaxy with his existence.

It happens as he makes his way back from Adilet's office to the little cabin. A bout of dizziness and nausea catches him off guard. As he's regaining his bearings against the bulkhead, an itch pricks the back of his neck and he turns to find the little girl standing there, a safe ten feet between them. Slipped through the hands of adults who only wish to feed her. In her rags and unevenly cut hair, and with that distrustful glower, she looks like a proper ragamuffin. He would have checked his pockets if he hadn't been the proud owner of absolutely nothing of value.

He doesn't have to read her emotions to know her thoughts, her face betrays them all. _You're like me,_ her face says. No question in there, although she probably doesn't have the words to describe just how they're the same. Her eyebrows are pulled down in a serious frown, her mouth a distrustful pout before she opens it to ask him in a tone he'd expect from a hardened adult and not a child: "What's your name?"

His heart makes a leap as he opens his own mouth, as if he'd just missed a step on the way down. A lot like the way he felt when he stood in front of the Knights of Ren for the first time to accept his place among them and had almost blurted out that his name was Ben Organa-Solo and not Kylo Ren out of sheer habit.

"Matt," he says.

Just like that. There's a part of him that marvels at just how easy that was. It's almost enough to mute the other part of him that is silently freaking out about just how easy that was.

This is the place where any other person would have asked the girl what she called herself, but Kyl – no – _Matt,_ takes a long good look at her, with her spindly limbs and her curious but suspicious big brown eyes, and he thinks, _if you ever hear voices, kid, or see shadows that aren't there, tell them to go fuck themselves._

Her eyes widen then narrows as if she's trying to decipher a malicious trick.

The hissing of a door distracts them both, and he – _Matt_ – turns around to see who's coming, subsequently earning himself a kick in the shins for taking his eyes off the girl. It's with vindictive satisfaction he, with his eyes tearing up at the sharp pain, points a stressed out Nine in the direction of where she'd run off to.

So it is _Matt_ who trawls his way from Adilet's office back to what has become his bed. It is _Matt_ who falls asleep as soon as his body hits the mattress and _Matt_ who sleeps through the rest of the day and the following night in fits and starts. It's _Matt_ who dreams of a matted, black mask framed by stars beyond a viewport, and of Kylo Ren standing alone on a narrow bridge.

Matt the radar technician. He could have come to a much worse fate than this, he tells himself. He could have been dead. At least Anakin seems to get a kick out of not having to call him Kylo anymore.

He wakes up early the next morning. Kylo – _kriff –_ Ben – No.

 _Ben?_

No. _Matt._ Definitely _Matt._

 _Matt_ stares for ten solid seconds at the ceiling – his shoulder letting him know there's been a while since he's taken painkillers – before the jittery feeling in his body takes over. Then he's up, not even bothering to do anything but taking a u-turn through the 'fresher to take a leak before he's out the door, having slept in the clothes he wore the other day. The dark halls of the Halcyon hum with the low sound of its engine. He walks undisturbed on his way to the cargo hold. Might as well be a ghost in the walls.

He gets to the bottom of the stairs, from where he has a good view of the place where the yellow crate had stood the day before. There are a couple of other spaces close to it that are also empty. The Force no longer carries any trace of the young girl's presence on the ship. She will have been taken care of along with the rest of the children, by someone who knows what the hell they're doing with stacks of drugged kids. The cutter Nine had used still lies on the floor where he dropped it yesterday.

Crates of children going to the First Order.

It's not like he didn't know this was going on.

"It bites doesn't it?" Anakin's voice is low in his head. "Once you finally admit to yourself that the ends can never justify the means?"

Han's voice hadn't sounded or felt like that during the firefight yesterday. No Force ghost of his father here, just buried memories.

"You tell yourself it'll all be worth it some day, all the atrocities," Anakin murmurs. "But the thing is it keeps getting worse, so then you start telling yourself they deserve it, or you convince yourself you hate them, or maybe it's their duty and only purpose in life. They'd be better off dying for a cause on some battlefield than living like rats and starving to death on the streets. They will thank you in the end once you've accomplished peace and order."

"Stop it!" Matt says through his teeth, dragging his hand through his hair, hair that is beyond filthy at this point. There is bile in his throat and a ringing in his ears. The echo of the worm in the back of his brain makes him want to gag. "Quit reading my mind!"

Invisible eyes regard him. "I wasn't," Anakin says, "But it has been duly noted."

He lets Matt sit in silence for a good ten seconds, just staring at the place where the crates used to be, and rubbing the back of his skull. Then Anakin speaks again. "Do you want to talk ab –"

"No."

"Not even –"

"No."

"I know what you're –"

"Just shut up alright!"

Anakin's signature flares with frustration, the same kind that Matt – then Kylo – had sensed before he'd gone off by himself the other day to do whatever the kriff ghosts do.

Trying to have a conversation with someone who won't answer back, Anakin? That's tough.

The door at the top of the staircase hisses open, and Matt turns in time to see Nine stepping into the cargo hold. The man stops in his tracks when he catches him there, his face puffy with sleep and his sandy hair uncombed, then squares his shoulders and continues down.

"Out of the fog now huh?" he says as he passes. Nine rolls his eyes when his question doesn't receive a reply, but he soldiers on, apparently intent on at least trying to make small talk.

"You know why they call me Nine, techie?" he says.

Matt looks at him. "No," he says.

"It was the only part of my serial number I could remember when I woke up in the medcenter," Nine says. "Matt was your nickname I gather. What was your – hey where are yh – Kriff, why do I bother?" The last words he speaks to himself, exasperated.

"I'm leaving," Matt says, already halfway up the staircase. When the most antagonistic person on the ship is making an effort to be friendly, it's time to withdraw.

"Why don't you take a turn in the 'fresher," Nine calls after him. "You're getting kind of rank."

"I like that guy," says Anakin.

* * *

The next day he wakes to the old 2-1B medical droid standing in his door and telling him that breakfast will be served in the mess hall. It had to happen eventually – although he'd rather it had been later rather than sooner – the time of having Maer bring his meals to his cabin had to come to an end. In the real world he's expected to take care of feeding himself, not rely on others to do it for him.

He gets as far as the hallway leading up to the mess before he stops, the thrum of machinery at the other end of the corridor behind him. The sound of a newsreader's voice broken by the instability of the HoloNet's signal comes through the doorway leading to the mess. Beyond the door the long wooden table is set, a few people are bustling about, some sitting down. He can see Adilet's puff of gray-streaked black hair, besides some pink faced sleep drowsed young man sipping from a steaming cup. By the end of the table Zaph chews lazily on a spoonful of porridge, looking as if he's very happy to be left alone where he sits. While Matt watches Maer and Nine comes to the table – each of them carrying their own bowls – and sits down.

Kyl – _Matt_ hesitates. What's he doing here? This isn't for him. His existence is supposed to be battles, and training, and sitting by himself by a oblong table eating solitary meals while trying not to think too hard about what his life has become, and now he's the kriffing _new guy_. The new guy who's still wet behind his ears. The one who's supposed to try to get to know these people like a normal person would do. Making small talk. As if that's a natural thing. Who does that? Ordinary people, that's who. And he's – Well. _Him._

Anakin's presence is with him. Matt can sense him regarding the display of normality with a curious unease of his own. What would his life have become had he not died when the Empire fell? He'd probably lived out the rest of it in a cell, Matt imagines, but his mind conjures up the image of a man having to deal with everyday life after so many years as an agent of the darkness. Formerly Darth Vader trying to blend in with the rest of the Rebels in some public dining hall.

Anakin gives him a mental nudge. An indication that however inane Matt's life is about to become he's not about to up and leave any time soon. Some reflex in him sneers at such a casual offering of reassurance, but somehow it's enough.

So he walks in. A new man, a new person. Not Kylo Ren, not Ben Organa-Solo, just Matt.

Adilet lifts her head when she sees him. She nods to the chair by her side, and he takes the seat, not looking anyone in the eyes. She pushes a fresh plate in front of him as he sits down. It smells – not terrible.

"I thought you would like to know," she says, "the girl went to Takodana."

* * *

Life changes. It starts with a lot of sleep. Restless sleep, disturbed by all kinds of strange and unsettling dreams but sleep nonetheless. Each time he wakes up it's like he never really rested at all. It's like his mind is working overdrive and can't shut down. He has to many thoughts, too much in his life he can't make sense of anymore. While his mind craves unconsciousness to reorganize, it just can't seem to stop itself from making up ghoulish scenarios in the process.

Anakin isn't always there, but more often than not, in the time Matt spends recuperating he often wakes to the sense of his presence, like some ancient guardian at his bedside.

True fatigue has finally caught up with him, or maybe he's just letting himself feel it for once. If battle, injury, pain and shock hasn't put him into a state of exhaustion already then grief would have. Wishing he could take what he did back only leads to wishing it had worked the way it was supposed to do. Despite everything, when the day cycles changes into the next and the images of Han falling into the abyss keep him awake, seeking out the darkness again seems like a kriffing great idea after all. Which goes to show, he can't even do a proper job of _failing_ to achieve what Snoke wanted for him.

More than once he startles awake, the knowledge that he's betrayed his Master, the only person who ever cared about him resting like a lump of ice in his chest, and he begs Anakin to show him "the karking darkside damnit!" The answers he gets may differ, but the meaning stays the same; Darth Vader no longer exists. They've been over this before, "for kriff sake boy, I know I have all the time in the afterlife, but even ghosts get tired of repeating themselves."

The desperate moods passes, they always do, but every single one of them leaves him with a hollow feeling, like there's nothing where there once was something. The promise of a glorious future ripped away only because he's fucking useless.

Rey stays in the back of his mind, muted and distant. When his thoughts race the worst he can sense her like one can see the yellow of a loth-cat's eyes in the darkness, watching him. His ruminations must be loud because he can never help but draw at her attention. Ever since he chased her away, they've given each other wide berths. If she takes a wrong turn in her mind and ends up in the vicinity of his thoughts, she'll simply remove herself, backing away without making a fuss. If it happens to him, more times than not he's on the receiving end of a mental pushback before he has the chance to do the same. Mostly.

"Would you please just sleep!"

He opens his eyes to the sound of her voice in his head. The Halcyon had landed, rested and taken off from Gandle the day before, and he'd still been aboard. Matt stifles a yawn. Unconsciousness has eluded him for hours despite how tired he is.

He's seeing double again. It's like the cabin has been split in half, the side that doesn't contain his bunk replaced with another room. She lies in her own bunk, her face hidden under the forearm slung across her eyes, an unhappy tilt to her mouth. Her hair fans across her thin pillow, as tangible as if he could reach across the narrow space between their bunks and pull his fingers through the strands. He's pretty sure he'll just grab through thin air if he did.

It strikes him how fragile her arms look without the bindings she'd worn, thin like twigs. But he knows firsthand how strong and vital they are despite the way she's been living from hand to mouth for most of her life. She's grown strong against all odds, a wild dandelion punching through duracreet.

She brings both her hands up to rub them over her eyes, yawning widely. Above the bend of her elbows he spots a faded mark in the wall; his own name scratched into the bulkhead of his father's ship. That's _his_ bunk she's sleeping in. That's _his_ space. He turns his line of sight back to the nondescript ceiling in his own cabin, a strange sensation stirring in his stomach; an odd sense of having been replaced in a life he didn't even want even while he had it.

In his peripheral vision she lowers her hands. She doesn't look at all surprised to find their cabins spliced together, just notes his presence with resigned moroseness. Always one step ahead of him.

"Is this some new ploy? Keeping me awake?" she asks, her voice groggy.

"Does everything look like just another game to you?" he asks back.

"It seems to be your signature move from what I can tell."

He turns to find her meeting his eyes with a defiant challenge, bright as a moon in the night sky. Kriff, how she can just twist him around like that. Just a scavenger? He must have been high on dreamdust or something when he said it, because he can definitely imagine peddlars pulling their hair out trying to barter with this girl who knows exactly what to say and how to say it.

He turns his back on her, settling on his side with his face to the wall, stifling a whinse as his shoulder protests the movement. "My apologies, _your highness_ ," he says. "If I'd known I'd been keeping you awake I would have gone right to sleep immediately."

She stays quiet for so long he might have expected to turn around to find her no longer there if it hadn't been for the fact that he can still feel her, a prickle at his neck. He has the sense that she's doing a little back and forth with herself, mulling over something like a puzzle.

"Why'd you do it?" she eventually says it in a whisper. If it hadn't been for the bond he might not have heard her at all. There's no twisting of the proverbial knife in it. It dawns on him she's asking why he bereft her of the future his father had offered her, away from that wretched planet, only to offer something he'd known she'd never wanted. And blast it, what is it about this girl that has him do complete one-eighties in the fraction of a nanosecond? He could pour all his sins out in front of her and it would never be enough.

"What would you do if the people who left you to rot on that planet for fifteen years came back to get you?" he says after a moment.

She says nothing. The silence is tainted by unease on her side of the bond, but he takes little pleasure in knowing that he can in fact get through her hardened shell. The sound of her shifting in her bed reaches him, then her voice, muffled as if she's speaking to her own wall.

"Kark off," she says. "I'm nothing like you."

"Definitely not," he agrees. Maybe not. Maybe she's not like him in all the ways that matter.

When Rey speaks again it's difficult to tell if she just wants another jab in or if curiousity got the better of her.

"Was it worth it?"

He closes his eyes, the dark behind his lids replacing the gray bulkhead. "Go to sleep, Rey."

It takes a while, but eventually she does.

* * *

He wakes to the smell of fresh salt air and the faint echo of the sound of birds. As he lies in his bunk the pieces come together. An island in an ocean. She found it. She found Luke. Her dreams had been prophetic.

Laughter bubbles its way up of Matt's throat. Skywalker's location. He had it all along.

* * *

 ** _I'm planning on updating this story once per week until I'm all caught up, but if you don't want to wait that long for the next installment there's already fourteen chapters up on AO3. You can find the entire story so far here: /works/8597167/chapters/19715788_**

 ** _If you enjoyed this please let me know!_**


	7. Chapter 7

"That's my nephew's lightsaber."

"Uh, I suppose it ‒"

"Where is he? Where's Ben?"

"Lu ‒ Master Skywalker, I'm Rey."

"How'd you come by it? Did you kill him?"

"I ‒ No! No, it called to me."

"What are…. That's… curious."

"This is a sleeve."

Standing in in the office that serves as Maer's clinic Matt glances at the thing she just unfolded on the patient bench. It sure looks like one. The outside is sown from some sort of heavy, woven material. It looks as if she cut off an arm and the bottom half of the torso of a sweater and decided to present the remains to him as some ridiculous form of fashion statement.

"Did you give up on the rest of it?" he asks dryly.

Maer quirks her lips. "Careful now," she says. "Someone might mistake that for a personality. It would go well that luscious hair of yours though."

She puts her hands on her hips and faces him. "With your permission I'm going to use you as my guinea pig. My second one actually. I already put Zapf in one of these." She picks up the fabric and holds it up to him. "This, as you might suspect, clever guy that you are, is an exo-prosthetic for your arm. I developed it myself. Low cost material. You won't believe the amount of people out there who are in need of prosthetics but can't afford to get them, let alone have the procedure."

Matt eyes the sleeve again. It's just a piece of cloth. He can't see how it's going to help him.

"No amputations then?" he says.

She grimaces. "For just a little nick? Stars no! We might not have a high tech medcenter here but we're not savages." Picking up the fabric she holds it up to him. "It's supposed to go directly above your skin so I'm going to need you to strip."

Matt coaxes himself out of his shirt with much more ease now than before. His bandages are long gone, his wounds healed by bacta, thought he's still plagued by a lingering ache in his shoulder. Maer lets him pull the sleeve up his dead arm on his own, only giving him a hand when the part that goes across his upper chest gives him trouble. It's tight, but flexible, and the inside is lined with smooth fabric that clings to him like a second skin. It feels odd, like it's built from layers of different materials, and there's something that's decidedly not fabric worked into all of it. Once it's on Maer takes a step back, evaluating her work.

"Try moving your hand," she says.

How? By sheer force of will? His arm doesn't feel any different, still numb except for the occasional tingle in his fingertips. Besides, she didn't ask him to move his arm, but his hand, which is not covered by anything.

Maer nods encouragingly. "Go on. Just like you've always done."

Alright then?

The muscle memory is gone. The knowledge that he could once use his arm is there, but it's like the link between his brain and the limb has been severed, which is exactly what has happened.

Kriff that kriffing scavenger.

Matt orders his arm to move. The thought is like knocking his bare palm against a durasteel door.

His hand moves.

"I know right?" Maer says in response to his surprise, a self satisfied grin splitting her face. "You can't feel it, but you can control it. Zapf used to hate it."

Matt stares as his hand curls into a ball and bends at the wrist. The movement follows his arm upwards and soon the elbow is bending too.

"The short explanation is there are sensors around your spine that picks up the information that's suppose to go to your arm," Maer tells him. "It sends electrical signals to your muscles which causes them to contract, hence," she gestures to her own creation, "movement! It's going to take some getting used to, but it'll come to you. Might take a while, but hey, at least you don't have to relearn how to walk. Your brain will eventually get used to the proprioceptional sensory output it gives you."

Experimentally he opens and closes his hand. "What's powering it?"

A clever gleam crosses Maer's eyes, as if he asked the one question she was dying to answer.

"You are," she says.

Why of course he is. Who else would be powering his very own exo-prosthetic?

"Don't worry," Maer continues, "it uses no more energy that your arm would if it was fully functioning, so you don't have to think about upping your calorie intake, which should be a great relief on us considering you already eat like a luggabeast. You need to be mindful of any injuries though, as the sensation in the hand won't come back right away if it comes back at all, so just remember that. Now I'm going to let you wear this for a couple of hours, and then I'm going to do some adjustments, ok?"

Matt swings his arm around, testing the range of motion. I acts stiff and unwieldy. A sharp bolt of pain shoots through his shoulder as he reaches it upwards. He lets out a hiss and winces.

"Yeah, you might not want to start of by dangling off chandeliers right away," Maer says. "Remember, that arm is still damaged. It's not fixed just because you can move it around. Hey, do you know what the best part of this is?"

"No."

"No muscle degradation." Grinning Maer spreads her hands as if to congratulate herself. "The sleeve isn't doing the movement for you, it's helping you do it yourself." She bumps the arm with the prosthetic on it with a loose fist. "You're welcome!"

Matt relaxes his arm. It even falls stiffly.

He doesn't know much about medicine, but this looks like really advanced technology. He's never seen anything like it. Prosthetics of many kinds sure, but not like this one. It's one thing to have the resources and material to create such a thing, but entirely another how and where Maer got the skills to build it.

"Why are you on this ship?" he asks her.

A rueful expression crosses Maer's face. "You mean why am I not in one of the great medcenters on Coruscant or some other high prestigious place?" She picks up Matt's shirt from the patient bench and hands it to him. He takes it automatically with his left hand. "Got fired," she says with a shrug. "Turns out no one appreciates it when you refuse to let a stormtrooper that got brought in by mistake die."

He walks out of her clinic with an arm that might function oddly for now, but at least it is functioning. It's not a complete recovery, and there's nothing she can do to fix his concussion, bring him back to full strength as it were, except ordering him to rest when he needs it. But it's something, he guesses, even if it's not the Force.

Maer's put him on some sort of recovery schedule. At first Matt had railed against it, but after spending an entire standard cycle in his bunk with the kriffing lights from the chronometer threatening to poke his kriffing eyes out in his otherwise dark room he learned that not following the doctor's orders is as good as repeatedly knocking his head against duracrete. Having a concussion is a trip and a half.

He's getting better though, but his returning health is doing nothing to heal the gap between the Force and himself. It's still there behind that wall of broken glass in his mind, a big karking tease just beyond his grasp.

There are days when it feels like it's no good. If he's going to put a spoke in Hux's wheels he's going to need more than an arm he can barely control. When he puts these thoughts into words, however, Anakin has the grace to mention that of the worst troublemakers that ever made his life as Darth Vader difficult, very few had the Force to begin with.

In times long past Leia had told him stories of what the rebels got up to under the reign of the Empire. Rarely stories about herself, or Han or Luke, but stories about others. Always this focus on others, people Ben had never known. Whenever he spun heroic tales about his family, he would always end up sorely disappointed by reality. The stories Leia told tended to end in ruin.

There had been one about this group, this ragtag team that had brought the plans for the first Death Star into the hands of the Rebel Alliance. He'd hated it. Where was the victorious ending? Or the stories about the heroes living happily ever after? Instead there was just destruction and death. Deserters and fools going against forces much bigger than them.

Something about it snags at Matt's attention now thought, the idea that if a group of Force-less people can cause so much mayhem, why not he? They say director Krennic had been roasted alive along with the rest of Scarif for his failures. The idea of Hux meeting the same fate in one way or another? It lights a fire in Matt like nothing else.

But for now, he's on the Halcyon. Healing is his first priority. Vengeance will come later.

The first time Matt walks back into the Zapf's little repair shop, prepared to give him some measly apology for the last incident, on orders from Anakin no less, the stuttering mechanic doesn't wait for him to even open his mouth before chucking another wrench at him. Then, once that's over with, he directs Matt to another malfunctioning droid. Matt quickly learns that Zapf works in silence or not at all.

It's a relief.

Fixing droids is familiar work, even if he's rusty. It's not as if Kylo Ren would get tasked with reprogramming bad tempered machinery, when his skills with a sabre and ability to wield the Force could be put to good use on a battlefield. However nothing his former Master ever taught him would have prepared him for life on the Halcyon. No, those skills came from elsewhere.

If Han had taught him about ships and how to not shoot himself in the foot when handling a blaster, then Luke Skywalker was the one who'd shown him how to fix a droid. Even Leia Organa, ever the politician, had known something about engineering as well as ships, and it's with a stubborn resentment Matt has to admit to himself he might have been homeless on some muddy street somewhere back on Karideph if it hadn't been for them. At least they managed to do one thing right. With the grace of the Force he intends to stay on the Halcyon. At least for a while.

As long as no one asks him to fix an actual radar. He knows absolutely nothing about radars.

To his great relief the rest of the crew allows him his space. Getting along isn't difficult. He wasn't raised without manners painstakingly nurtured into him. Old habits die hard, and apparently even becoming a Knight of Ren couldn't kill this particular one.

Out of all the crew, Maer is the one who gives him the most trouble, hunting him down if he doesn't rest enough, and always lecturing him about the dangers of developing concussion syndrome every chance she gets. Luckily, Nine stays out of Matt's sight most of the time.

The pilot, Jagger, turns out to be the pink faced young man who sat besides Adilet at Matt's first meal in the mess. It's impossible to get past the guy in the hallways without getting a cheery 'hey mate' or 'pall! or 'buddy!" thrown his way. The man is just so kriffing perky Matt feels a pressing need to avoid him every chance he gets.

What is worse, the guy's a kriffing pilot nerd, knowing everything about piloting and every known pilot in the known history of the galaxy. Which is how Matt has the nightmarish experience of having to witness him having a kriffing meltdown one day over breakfast, when the Holo News finally reports that Han Solo has been killed in action.

The whole thing comes completely out of left field. One moment Matt's just sitting there listening to the odd conversation that usually goes on between his crewmates and suddenly his father's name is spoken and there's his face too. All over the news like some terrible practical joke. All of a sudden the open space of the mess becomes a suffocating box, and he wants is to run. To take one of the Halcyon's life-shuttles and take off towards the outer rim.

He's in the middle of contemplating the best way to get the hell out of the mess as fast as humanly possible ‒ insulting Nine or just start throwing punches ‒ when Anakin pipes up, tries to have him correct Jagger who's just stated Han made the Kesser Run in about thirteen parsecs instead of just under twelve. Just how and why Anakin has taken such an interest in his father's accomplishments is beyond Matt. All he knows is that he has to spend the rest of the day listening to Anakin's ramblings about just because he's dead it doesn't mean he has to stop being interested in everything he enjoyed while he lived. "I used to be be a pretty good pilot once you know. Passions like that just don't go away because you stop breathing. You don't know what it's like being dead until you've been there!"

Then there's Pia, the engine mechanic, who appears to be around five or six months pregnant. In the beginning she doesn't give a damn about the new addition to her crewmates and Matt thanks the stars for small favours; one more person he doesn't have to make small talk with. It lasts until Pia catches him checking out the machinery room on a night he'd given up on sleep. Not only does she deduct his interest in the ship's engine, but after having made the discovery she won't karking shut up about the subject whenever he's around. The worst part however, is that during all her questioning and ramblings Matt accidentally let it slip that his father used to own a light freighter. It might have gone right over her head however, because all she says is 'sweet' then she goes on about the modifications she's made to the hyperdrive.

Ress and Tull ‒ or Ressantull as they might as well be named as they appear to be attached at the hip ‒ somehow does not have any designated work as far as Matt can tell. Unless said work is maintaining blasters and acting as firepower auxiliary if the clientele they're dealing with acts particularly untrustworthy. Matt never learns who is who out of the two, because they're always addressed in union instead of separately and nobody bothers to explain it to him.

Normal life is kriffing bizarre.

So it goes. Matt heals, sleeps, eats, and if Maer allows him, works. The first period of time goes by like that in a haze. He might as well be on autopilot. There comes a day when he wakes up and realizes he's been on the Halcyon for weeks. He looks in the mirror and sees a scar that has paled from the angry red it used to be. He gets dressed, putting the prosthetic sleeve on first, then his clothes; pants, shirt, shoes. He eats meals with the crew, he works alongside Zapf, and he sleeps in his own cabin at night.

There are days it scares him kriffing shitless just how easy life is. The demands that are made of him are simple, get up in the morning, do his job, eat his vegetables. Disapearing into this life and never emerge again would be easy as long as he keeps his head down. Out of all the things that are expected of him, Maer's demands that Matt will allow himself the time to heal happens to be his greatest challenge by far.

But he's not the only one who thinks it should be harder. For all Anakin's words about wanting Matt to go his own way, he isn't happy about the part where he has made no plans to contact his mother.

"I'm not saying you should see her face to face," Anakin says. They're in the repair shop, and Matt is fiddling with one of the spindly arm of an old WED Treadwell. "I just don't understand why you won't let her know that you're on their side now."

"I'm not on the side of the Resistance," Matt corrects, silently and inside his head just to be sure. Zapf's sitting right there across the room with the exploded parts of a project of his that doesn't seem to have gone anywhere in the weeks that have passed. The robotic arm on wheels hovers by Matt's side, hanging around as if hoping for a opportunity to help in case his prosthetic acts out. It hasn't yet, in fact it works perfectly.

"I'm evening out the playing field," Matt says. "That's it."

"Evening out the playing field by planning to demolish the weapons of their enemies? I'm pretty sure that counts as being on their side."

"Don't start this again."

"She's your mother!"

"Yes, and look how far that got us."

"Hey now..."

"I was not the one who cut ties first, so kriffing drop it alright." Matt opens up the panel underneath the WED's arms with more force than necessary and reaches inside. "Why is this so important to you anyway?"

"Wrong wire," says Anakin.

"What?"

"That's the wrong wire. You can't hardwire these old WED's like they do those fancy newer models."

Matt frowns at what he's doing.

"They don't make droids like this anymore," Anakin says. "Those new models are just too damn delicate. No use when it comes to proper hard work."

"Are you telling me you know how to fix droids now?"

"Know how? I built one for my mother when I was ten."

Over on his side of the shop Zapf coughts. Matt glances over to see the old fellow still hanging over his work in concentration.

He has the slightest inkling there's been mentions of a mother before, back when he was lying injured in the snow on Starkiller and still insisting on calling his grandfather Darth Vader.

"You had a mother?" he says now.

Anakin hums and haws. "No, actually I was born out of the ether, fully formed, cape, mask and everything."

Matt huffs. "What happened to her?"

"She died," says Anakin and leaves it at that. Matt is about to ask another question when the ghost's energy changes, turning into rapt attention.

It's become like an alert, the way Anakin has tuned himself into knowing exactly when Matt is about to have an encounter with Rey. Sure enough, the next second he finds himself mind to mind with the girl in question, like they've both walked around a corner and right smack into each other.

"Oh bother," she says dryly, the usual irritation radiating through their connection.

If Anakin had a head, Matt's sure he would have been cocking it to the side while listening. He sure had taken an interest in the bond once he learned about the girl who'd caused the state of damage he'd found Matt in on Starkiller.

"Has Skywalker agreed to train you yet?" Matt asks Rey before she can cut him off like she usually does. She never admitted as much, but he's been able to fit together the bits and pieces from their not so amicable conversations so far.

"Like you'd care."

Matt sighs. Why she refuses to understand that he actually do care is beyond him. Training with Luke is better than no training at all.

He could go after her, if he thought he'd been a better teacher, but in his current condition he doubts he'd be able to teach a fish to swim. Ever since the day he woke up with the knowledge she'd found Skywalker he's been aware of the pull. It's coming through her, he's sure of it. A line with a hook that would have eventually led Rey, and subsequently him too if he'd let it, to Luke's location, with or without the map. It makes no sense to him, but Matt guesses that for whatever reason, the Force has decided that her path should cross with his entire family's. Another sign that she was never meant for his apprenticeship.

It's a pull so strong it caused her to dream of Skywalker's location. It could even have lead Matt there had he just listened to the bond. He can't pinpoint any direction of where the it comes from, but he's sure if he'd sat down in a shuttle and let the universe guide him, he'd eventually ended up where Rey is now.

If he'd wanted to that is.

"Yeah well I guess that old fraud wouldn't see reason if it slapped him in the face," he tells Rey.

By his side Anakin's energy bristles minutely. They've been over the subject of Luke again and again. It's not Matt's fault Anakin sees Skywalker as some sort of saviour figure. So far they've only grudgingly agreed to disagree.

"Something that runs in the family, I've learned," Rey says pointedly.

Mat huffs, but an involuntary smile pulls at his mouth. Despite her constant need to goad him he has to admit, she can be funny.

This conversation has already gone on for far longer than what she usually allows, so he tries his luck and goes on. "You really can't help yourself can you?" he says.

"But you make it so easy."

"No wonder Skywalker won't teach you with an attitude like that."

"Oh no, I only act like this when I'm talking to the megalomaniac who kidnapped me." She gives Matt the mental version of a flick between his eyes. He resurfaces with a low grunt, back in the repair shop again.

"She keeps running laps around you, that one" Anakin says.

"Shut up, grandpa."

* * *

With life on the Halcyon comes other tasks than what's not specifically his job. There's droids that do the maintenance and the cleaning. Matt pretty much doesn't have much else to do besides work, and remembering what it means to act as if he's not in the First Order anymore, in addition to keeping his own cabin tidy. Once in awhile, however, there's Dinner Night, and when there's Dinner Night everyone takes their turn planning the menu and preparing the meal. When Adilet suggest with some apprehension Matt doesn't have to when his turn comes around he ignores her. He will take any opportunity to avoid having to eat the disgusting gruel some of the crew has come up with so far. Besides as far as tasks go cooking isn't even half bad. He never got to do it in the First Order.

"What sector in the F.O. did you say you worked in again?" Nine asks, eyeing the steamed, lemon-buttered asparagus on his fork.

"I didn't," Matt answers.

"Oh," Nine says "Good we got that cleared up."

"This is really good!" Jagger tells Matt, talking through a mouthful of mogos steak. By his side Zapf nods, silently agreeing. Matt keeps his thoughts on the disaster of a risotto Jagger had made the other week to himself.

The fleeting look Nine sends his way carries a hint of suspicion, but it's gone so fast it may not even have been there to begin with. Even so Matt adapts a flat mask and focuses his eyes on his plate instead of the loadmaster.

"Hey, hush!" Maer tells them. She's got her eyes on the HoloNews which is always on in the corner. "Look."

This isn't the first time meals has been interrupted by broadcasts. New information about the First Order's advances across the galaxy comes out of the Net nearly every day. The mood among the crew becomes pressing on those days. It's as though the shock of the Hosnian system's destruction never gets to quite settle. Matt always watches with a boiling sensation in his stomach, picturing Hux choking on his own dinner.

Today's broadcast is like every other broadcast, another planet close to the core under siege, only this time news reader speaks of sightings on the battlefield of the Knights of Ren.

"Oh look, they're all there," Nine says. There are indeed seven figures on the holo. Matt frowns. All of them? But he's right here. The dark splotches can literally be anybody. Only someone as familiar with the Knights as he is can make them out at that distance. That one blotch right there is obviously the sniper. Or maybe the Heavy? Might be the Rogue.

"Too bad," Nine goes on, "here I was hoping they all kicked it when that kriffing planet blew up."

"Did you ever meet one of them?" Pia asks. It's not clear who she's talking to, Matt, Nine or both, but Nine is the one who answers.

"Nope," he says. "Ran past that Monk guy once. Kriffing creepo." He shakes his head as if a shiver of disgust just ran through him. "If they don't kill you on a mere whim, they do their darndest to make you soil your pants. Every trooper knows they're assholes, every single one of them. Especially that main guy."

"Who? Kylo Ren?"

Matt turns his eyes back to his plate again, concentrating hard on his asparagus. The look some of the people around him sends his way, as if they're trying to ignore his reaction but just can't help themselves, alarms him. No one here knows, he tells himself. He's Matt the radar technician. No one knows.

Do they?

"Him yeah." Nine grimaces for emphasis. "Kriffing nightmare that one. I heard about more than a few buckets who pissed their armour when they had to go near him. He's karking volatile even for a Knight."

"H-heard he w-w-was shredded thought," Zapf mumbles as if to himself, pushing some food around on his plate and stabbing a potato.

Jagger spits his mouthful of water across the table. At the other end Ress and Tull are both openly snickering. Maer looks away, but not before Matt gets a glimpse of the pained but amused look on her face. Nine on the other hand just puts a hand to his nose as he shakes his head.

Matt's ears turns warm beneath his hair. He has the odd feeling he's supposed to make sense of what Zapf just said.

"Al right guys," Adilet says, her tone stern yet there's a glint in her eyes. "Enough now."

That night, because he can't sleep, Matt goes through the radar technician's pockets again. He never did throw the ruined remnants of the clothes away, and no one has done it for him.

He finds the old glasses and tries them on only to discover there are no actual lenses in the frames. Shaking his head bemusedly he tosses them back into the pile. In the big pocket on the back piece of the tool-vest, he finds even more used paper tissue, something hard he suspects might have been edible at some point, and a small note book.

Again this is all stuff not a single First Order employee would ever have access to. This person whose identity he has taken is one bewildering fellow. That is, if the real Matt is still alive.

The pages are all stained in one corner by what smells like old kaff, curling the flimsies as they stick together. Sitting down on his bed, leaning up against the wall with a foot propped up on the chair, Matt opens the thing at random.

It reads like a diary, a very pathetic one at that. How the First Order could survive by hiring such a poor excuse for a technician is beyond Matt, but he chalks it down to one of Hux's many, many shortcomings. The real Matt doesn't even know what a calcinator is.

He flipp through the book and comes to a stop as he sees his own name ‒ Kylo Ren ‒ mentioned more than once over the course of several sentences, like a poorly constructed word rhyme.

'Today when we were eating Tim said in front of everybody that Kylo Ren looks like a punk bitch. He said Kylo Ren looks like he weighs thirty pounds soaking wet, and Zack laughed at his mean joke. I told him a friend of mine saw Kylo Ren in the shower. That Kylo Ren has an eight pack. But Tim and Zack laughed even more at me, so I said Kylo Ren is shredded.'

Matt closes the book. Tossing it to the floor he sags further down on the bed. Heat gathers in his face, and he brings his hands up to cover his eyes. Out of all the shit he's been through over the course of his lifetime, this might actually be the one thing that kills him.

He goes back to bed, and fall asleep to questions of how someone like Real Matt could ever have survived a place like the First Order. In his dreams he's on his hands and knees in front of an open panel, rummaging inside for something he has no idea what is. Some woman stands above him yelling about not having had her muffin yet. Stress turns to anger, and Kylo Ren rises, the red saber in his hands and ‒

Stay here I'll come back for you.

‒ The woman is gone. In front of him stands a scrawny boy with sunken eyes, dressed in dirty linens. "Give me that," the boy says, snatching his hand forward. He ‒ Matt ‒ looks down and finds a calcinator clutched between his finger instead of his saber.

"Please! Give it to me, I'm so hungry." The boy reaches for it again and Matt recoils ‒

I'll come back sweetheart, I promise.

‒ A cool gust blows through the empty halls of the downed Star Destroyer. He stands by the edge of a steep fall, looking down into dark nothingness. He has to go down there, there's no other way to know, but instead he ‒

I'm here! Right here! Where are you?

‒ turns to find that the ginger haired General has walked up besides him on the Finalizer's bridge. Hux frowns at a datapad as Lieutenant Mitaka briefs him on an incident with a stolen TIE-fighter. The general looks up, sees Matt there. His nose wrinkles as if detecting something rotten is in the air. "Another Ren is it?" he says. "That's timely. Our consoles were due for another upgrade after all."

You're here for a reason scavenger. Might as well pay your dues.

Matt whirls, and almost bangs his head against a low durasteel ceiling. The rusty and weathered surroundings bear a hint of homeliness. There's a dried flower in a makeshift vase, and a hammock hanging between two beams. Scratches on the wall counting the days….

There's a soft snivel behind him. At first he can't see her when he turns, her clothes saturated by the desert just as it has her home. And she's small. So young. Barely even a teenager.

Rey sits hunched behind a crate in the corner with her back to the open room, wiping her eyes and nose with her bare palm. The tiny body shakes, her three buns softly quivering. Her hand comes up to the side of her head. As he watches she curls it into a fist and knocks the knuckles against her scalp.

"Bad, bad, bad!"

A knot forms in Matt's stomach. He's not suppose to see this, is he?

Taking a step forward he says, "hey."

She hits herself again. "Bad, bad, bad!"

Within less than five steps he's at her side and just as her hand curls tight again ‒ bad, bad, bad ‒ he grabs her by the wrist. "Stop that!"

Rey reacts immediately. She spins around, gasping in shock, her eyes wide with fright and ‒

‒ Matt wakes up.

His eyes open to the darkness of his cabbin. The dream has scrambled reality and it takes several seconds before he can make sense of where he is. The faint light of the chrono above his door has vanished.

Matt freezes. Something has changed. The sudden smell of salt in the air and the remnants of molten rock; the calm heartbeat that is not his own, the soft inhale and exhale of breath, and the pitch black shadow of a Knight in the room.

 ** _I'm planning on updating this story once per week until I'm all caught up, but if you don't want to wait that long for the next installment there's already fourteen chapters up on AO3. You can find the entire story so far here:_** ** _/works/8597167/chapters/19715788_**

 ** _If you enjoyed this please let me know!_**


	8. Chapter 8

Hey there followers!

There's been some renewed interest in this story since TLJ came out, and I thought I should inform you guys that if you want more of this you should head over to Ao3 and read the rest of it there. I already have sixteen chapters up and another in the works.

Sadly I will not be updating this fic on fanfiction dot net anymore. While I was getting some attention on it I was not getting much feedback. To be honest it was depressing me and messing with my ability to write. It wasn't even worth simply reposting what I'd already written. So that's the story.

I leave you with a small taste of the next chapter, and hope to see you again on the other site. (See what I did there?)

May the Force be with you!

* * *

Reflexes kicks in. Matt's reaction is a swift and sudden as when he called himself Kylo Ren. The fever of focus honed over many years of training floods his veins and ignites his brain neurons. As the Knight rises from the dark shadows he lets it consume him. He jumps into action.

Too bad he's out of practice.

Too bad he doesn't wear the prosthetic at night.

In a move that's suppose to fluently bring him to his feet Matt loses his balance halfway out of his bunk and crashes onto the floor, landing on his injured shoulder.

For a second he can't breathe. His entire side is screaming. His consciousness narrows down to that one part of his body, forgetting all about his surroundings. He opens his bleary eyes to the dark interior of what looks like a brick hut, the sound of someone crying out ringing in his head.

He blinks –

– and is back in his cabin in the Halcyon. The lights from the chronometer shines back at him from above the door, illuminating the completely empty space. He blinks again.

Rey's breath comes in gasps as she clutches her shoulder. A dark shadow looms above her, but she can hardly see it through tears of pain. Her shoulder. Oh kriff, her shoulder!

"No," Matt says out loud. They were suppose to come for him. He's the hunted one, not her! This is his fight, but instead of springing into battle he's watching from across lightyears as the Knight of Ren advances on Rey from the darkness. A red blade ignites.


End file.
